KARZAI—DESPERATE BREATHING

ALI SUKHANVER

“Go back—Go back—It is the time to go back”, the hard and stony mountains of Afghanistan are yelling at Mr. Karzai but he is not willing to listen to them; he never imagines himself going out of the political realm, he has been ruling over for the last thirteen years. He whispers to himself, “I am Hamid Karzai; only death can throw me out of my realm.” It is something very hard on his part that constitutional bindings did not let him contest the presidential elections for the third time but even then he is stubbornly striving to cling to the power and authority. Karzai doesn’t know how important is the peace and prosperity in Afghanistan particularly when the western forces say good-bye to the Afghan lands; all he knows is that he must remain a part of this power-seeking game. So he is always found involved in designing new schemes and new plans to satisfy his insane desire of remaining a player of the power-seeking game in Afghanistan.

It is very true that Mr. Hamid Karzai has ever been a man of very strong nerves and exemplary skills in the last thirteen years. No doubt, it was because of his extra-genius talent that he came triumphant with high colours out of all hardships and difficulties during his tenure as the president of Afghanistan but now his time has come to an end and his role in the politics of Afghanistan has been concluded. The only way he could choose is to lead rest of his life in silence and quietness. But what to do with the influential war lords of Afghanistan, the local and foreign militants and agents of foreign intelligence agencies like CIA, RAW and MI6 who have ever been in close contact with him during his presidency. Now all these elements are pushing him up not to lose heart and try to be a part of the future government in any position. Let us see what he does to cling to the Afghan throne.

Unfortunately Karzai’s government has ever been hostile to Pakistan in spite of the fact that Pakistan has always honestly desired to see Afghanistan peaceful and prosperous. Karzai, throughout his tenure as President of Afghanistan did nothing but designed evil strategies in collaboration with his masters to defame Pakistan and particularly the ISI, Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency. Somewhere in June 2013, Mr. Karzai said in an interview with a Pakistani television channel that Pakistan’s premier spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence was not playing its role to bring peace in Afghanistan. He said he had no complaints against Pakistan’s civilian leadership but had ‘serious reservations’ over the role of the security establishment.

Ramazan Bashardost is Afghanistan’s former Planning Minister and was an independent candidate in the Afghan presidential election, 2009. He is well known for his blunt analysis and bitterly realistic comments on politics and politicians in Afghanistan. In 2010 a very interesting statement of Ramazan Bashardost appeared in the media about Hamid Karzai. He said, “Karzai says one thing in the morning, and another in the afternoon. And he might mean both of them.” But in case of Pakistan and the ISI, we never see any variation in Karzai’s approach and opinion. He is all time against these two. The sole aim of his life seems to give Pakistan and the ISI a tough time though it is very unfortunate of him that his dreams could never come true. It is being apprehended by most of the defense analysts that before handing over the office of the Afghan President to his successor, he would certainly try to play some more gimmicks which could blame and defame Pakistan internationally. The gimmick may include a planned attack on Indian Embassy in Kabul, assassination attempt on the newly elected President of Afghanistan or some other attempt of the same type. And Mr. Karzai would surely bless Pakistan with a “Farewell Gift” by framing Pakistan and the ISI behind this ‘gimmickry’.