Plan B

Al Jazeera:

Hamid Karzai listened to a mixture of congratulations and straight talking down the telephone from President Obama on Monday just hours after Mr. Karzai was declared the winner of the Afghan elections by default.
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President Obama made clear what the United States expects.

"I emphasized that this has to be a point in time in which we begin to write a new chapter based on improved governance, a much more serious effort to eradicate corruption, joint efforts to accelerate the training of Afghan security forces so that the Afghan people can provide for their own security," he said.

In addition, some American officials and their European counterparts would like at least a few arrests of what one administration official called "the more blatantly corrupt" people in the Afghan government.

Administration officials declined to provide the names of people they wanted to see arrested and acknowledged that such arrests were a long shot.
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"A couple of high-profile heads on a platter would be nice," said one European diplomat involved in Afghanistan. The diplomat, like other officials, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.

But neither report offers word on whether background noise could have impacted the discussion: "In the capital, a sense of relief was instant and palpable. Kabul residents honked horns and exchanged celebratory text messages as the news spread." News of Karzai's victory, that is.

But that response was not universal: "There is no point in voting,'' one Afghan told reporter David Wood prior to Abdullah's withdrawal. "Karzai will win anyway. You know that. He is your man.''

And that perception could be even more injurious to success in Afghanistan than any claims of corruption, real or imagined. But in post-election Afghanistan we'll deal with all of the above, and in Wood's grim assessment, "The script couldn't have been improved if Taliban chieftain Mullah Omar had put himself to the task."

And there lies the irony - not only is Karzai not Obama's man, the conversation between the two was one of the few they've ever held.

As the New York Times reports, "In the early days of Mr. Obama's presidency, he and his aides searched desperately for a plausible alternative to Mr. Karzai." And even al Jazeera will acknowledge that the President of Afghanistan's access to the White House is via the kitchen door:

When Karzai was finally invited to Washington in May he was forced to share the spotlight with Pakistan's president and was not granted a bi-lateral meeting with Obama - a courtesy normally extended to world leaders deemed to be significant.

Just over one year ago, then-candidate Obama had explained to Americans that "we're also going to have to work with the Karzai government," and "we have to press the Afghan government to make certain that they are actually working for their people." But from the beginning their relations as presidents of nations allied in war would turn out to be distant, at best.

Afghanistani President Hamid Karzai admitted on Friday that he had not spoken to Barack Obama since the new US president assumed office last month and conceded that he had become increasingly isolated as American support drained away.

And until recently, Karzai was even further down the list of acceptable people to talk to than General Stan McChrystal.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad:

"...I believe that there was a mistake in terms of dealing with Karzai. Clear indications were given as least as Karzai saw it that the administration, some key members of the administration, did not like him and wanted to get rid of him and was encouraging others to run against him. And the meetings with him were quite contentious."

"At the same time the administration did not have a realistic plan about how to get another leader elected by the Afghan people. And so that in turn has been a factor in getting Karzai to hedge against the U.S. being administratively against him by assuring his prospects by making deals with others."

Some of those others could now find their names on that list of desired high-profile heads on a platter.

For his part, in his first speech following his victory Karzai pledged to address corruption in his country:

"Afghanistan has been tarnished by administrative corruption, and I will launch a campaign to clean the government of corruption," he said.

Asked if that might involve changing important ministers and officials, he said: "These problems cannot be solved by changing high-ranking officials. We'll review the laws and see what problems are in the law, and we will draft some new laws."

David Wood:

If there is a silver lining here, it is the opening created for the Obama administration to shift its focus from creating a strong central government to simply ignoring the capital and focusing on building good governance in Afghanistan's 34 provinces.

However, he adds, "Provincial governors are not elected... they are appointed by the president." (Of Afghanistan, to be clear.)

That emphasis on the provincial is the last-minute Plan B we've mentioned here before...

...Obama had requested data on provincial governments. Presumably that's already been done in-country as part of prioritizing where any number of troops could most effectively be deployed, but the Post reports the request for detail "reflects the administration's turn toward Afghanistan's provincial governors, tribal leaders and local militias as potentially more effective partners in the effort than a historically weak central government that is confronting questions of legitimacy after the flawed Aug. 20 presidential election"

...but once again, some powerful figures in provincial politics may be on the platter list, and the U.S. and its allies have little time to spare now in a hunt for those without pure heart.

But don't worry - the White House indeed has a plan to "boost popular support for President Hamid Karzai and erase the doubts about his legitimacy raised by his fraud-marred re-election." That according to "a U.S. government document that outlines part of the proposed Compact and was obtained by McClatchy."

The document outlines proposals for ceding greater power to authorities who run Afghanistan's 34 provinces and nearly 400 districts, including providing them with more development funds and the ability to direct them to projects that they think are most needed.
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The success of the so-called "Afghanistan Compact" will hinge on Karzai's willingness to take bold actions such as cracking down on official corruption, replacing ineffective ministers and surrendering some power to local authorities, which in the past he's resisted or failed to undertake.

Certainly every American will appreciate Obama's concern with a corrupt, uncontrolled federal government wielding excessive power.

"The Obama administration has been developing the Compact for months in coordination with U.S. allies and Karzai's government." McClatchy reports, "It's tried to keep the effort quiet so it could be presented as an Afghan initiative, according to several U.S. and European officials and the U.S. government document. "Afghans must lead," the document says." Obviously - otherwise, the people might believe their government is only following the dictates of the West.

Step one in a plan to make it look like their idea might be not leaking that it isn't - but leaks are certainly nothing new in this ongoing drama. And if the we've been working on this plan for months claim also sounds familiar, it might be because Vice President Joe Biden used the same line back in July in defense of plan A: "I think the right approach is the one we have chosen, the Obama/Biden administration," he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos by way of saying "give it time."

"We did a thorough review of what our objectives and policies were and should be in Afghanistan. We set in motion a policy which is now only beginning to unfold. All the troops we agreed to increase are not even all in place at this point."

"We spent five months, with the entire national security team - the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Adviser - down in that tank, down in that situation room, laboriously banging out the plan"

In Kabul the celebrations have ended for now, and the people have returned to wondering where the next car bomb might hit.

And five British soldiers were killed "by a suspected Taliban infiltrator who turned his gun on the servicemen at a checkpoint in Nad-e-Ali in Helmand, dubbed the 'Wild West', on Tuesday."

Meanwhile, back in the United States, the staffer who "leaked" information on ethics investigations of "30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling" has reportedly been fired. Alert action by the ethics committee chair ensured lawmakers weren't caught off guard by the revelations. "Shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday, the committee chairman, Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), interrupted a series of House votes to alert lawmakers about the breach."

Previously: Friends