Word: karzai
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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What's the optimal outcome for the U.S. in Thursday's Afghan election? In the last presidential race in 2004, that question would have been a no-brainer. Hamid Karzai was Washington's man, campaigning as the incumbent in Afghanistan's first post-Taliban election, having been installed by international edict after the U.S.-led invasion...
...Today, however, Karzai epitomizes a political status quo deemed untenable in Washington, because its rampant corruption, cronyism and failure to deliver security and services to the citizenry has enabled a massive Taliban resurgence. "The U.S. priority in Afghanistan today is waging a counterinsurgency war, in which good governance in an important element," says Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International studies, who recently visited Afghanistan as part of the team advising U.S. commander General Stanley McChrystal. By the measure of good governance, Karzai has been a failure, and nobody expects much different if he's reelected. (See pictures...
...parlor. "People in the south who say bad things against him should look at where they live." A laminated poster of the general in the mountains on a white horse hung on the wall behind Qaridyar. Asked whether, if Dostum requested it, he would switch sides and vote for Karzai's opponent Abdullah Abdullah, Babak Khan, a butcher across town, replied: "Anything he says, we will obey. If that means Abdullah, then yes, of course." Not that there's much chance of Dostum switching his allegiance. (See pictures of the run-up to Afghanistan's presidential election...
...months preceding the vote, President Karzai made a series of cunning backroom deals to co-opt potential opponents. Many assume that Dostum's support for Karzai was likewise brokered, in exchange for amnesty from prosecution on alleged crimes, or a cabinet post. But the general insists he seeks no office. Instead, if asked by the Afghan government, he says he's prepared to launch an anti-Taliban offensive across the north of Afghanistan, parts of which have seen an alarming rise in violence in recent months. "I have my own power to destroy the Taliban," he says. "They either escape...
Watch TIME's video, "The Afghan Election: The Man Who Could Upset Karzai...