Is America ready to dump President Karzai?

Grave accusations have been laid this week that Ahmed Wali Karzai has profited serially from the Afghan narcotics trade and has been protected by his brother President Hamid Karzai. The news was reported as a lead item in the New York Times - and that is the real story.
 
The news itself is old - there have been stories circulating for years about the involvement of Ahmed Wali (right) with the narcotics trade. These have been denied by both the accused and his brother the president. The latest accusations relate to big shipments in 2004 and 2006 - and the latter has been corroborated for the New York Times by a grass called Hajji Ahman Keri, who is still in custody.
 
The important aspect of the Times story is why it has been brought up now. The obvious conclusion is that the US has finally decided to dump President Hamid Karzai and will back another candidate in next year's elections in Afghanistan - and one more amenable to their policy on Afghanistan and the war on terror in the region.
 
As the US defence budget for the coming year, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is revealed to be $700bn - exactly the amount required to bail out the US financial sector, and ten times Britain's annual defence budget - General David Petraeus is drawing up a new and more punchy strategy for Afghanistan. He believes his 'surge' of 35,000 extra US troops improved security in Iraq and he now proposes a surge of 15,000 US troops for Afghanistan before next spring. But he wants the Nato allies to match this.

Last week his request appeared to get pretty short shrift in London. The fear is that America with its cross-border raids into the tribal areas of Pakistan is spreading the war. Combined with an al-Qaeda push in Kashmir, we could be facing a widening regional conflict, culminating if we are not careful in an all-out India-Pakistan war. This time both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons - which they've said they're prepared to use.

Meanwhile, the French government rather unsportingly leaked that the British ambassador in Kabul, Sherard Cowper-Coles, had confided to the French deputy ambassador that the present US-directed strategy - and they are now the sole proprietors of international force strategy in Afghanistan - was "doomed to failure" and that the best solution for the country was for "an acceptable dictator" to be installed. The Foreign Office claims the French gave a "parody" of what the ambassador actually said - but most observers see generous grains of truth in what he suggested.
  
The British brigadier in Helmand province, Mark Carleton-Smith, has warned that the international forces cannot hope for an outright military victory against the Taliban. He told the Sunday Times that there is a need to lower expectations and he believed there would have to be some negotiated settlement with the local Taliban.
 
Carleton-Smith (right, with Gordon Brown) said his troops had been able to keep the Taliban in check, but had not decisively defeated them. There are strong indications now that following a summit between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Taliban leaders in Peshawar last October, Iran began sending new weapons and trainers to help Taliban fighters in the west of Afghanistan.
 
The British brigadier also pointed out that 16 Air Assault Brigade had taken high casualties - well over 100 killed and seriously injured in four months - while the elite 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment had suffered 10 fatalities in as many days. The cost is too high - particularly in a war whose aims our political masters seem to lack the ability and will to articulate.

Gordon Brown and his European allies can no longer sit on their hands. They must explain why Afghanistan is vital ground for us - with or without the corrupt Karzai regime. They must also say why the Brits, Canadians, the Dutch, Danes, French and Australians must follow the frenetic American military script in the region. If they disagree with the Americans, they must say how we can do it different and better, or get out. ·