Come with me to see Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan. As usual, he is dapper, elegant, and urbane — and relaxed, engaging, and voluble. . . . Here in Sharm, he has just met with President Bush, and says they had a good talk. I ask, “So, how goes the struggle?” This is a familiar American expression, or at any rate a familiar English-language expression. My friend and colleague Mike Potemra uses it often: instead of “How are you?” “How goes the struggle?”
Karzai reflects for a moment and says, “‘Struggle’ is exactly the word. It is very hard. But we are doing it every day.”
In the course of his remarks, he says that outside aid is a danger — sometimes a necessity, of course, but a danger. You can grow dependent on it. You can fail to do things yourself. I think, “This is true both for a nation and for an individual.”
And a funny moment occurs: An aide takes Karzai’s coffee away, I think to add milk to it or something. And Karzai says, “See? Here is wastefulness in government.” Whatever the man is doing, the president could be doing himself. Or the effort is being duplicated. Or something. In any case, this is a funny moment, as I’ve said.I say, “There is a lot of contempt for President Bush expressed at conferences like this. What is your opinion of him?” Karzai says that he, along with Afghanistan at large, has nothing but “respect, admiration, and praise” for him. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? After all, Afghanistan has been reborn, in the time of George W. Bush. Still, Karzai makes a moving statement.
He says that, without American action, Afghanistan would be “the most miserable nation on earth — the poorest, the hungriest, the most suffering.” But, thanks to that action, the country has a new life. Decency, health, and material supply have been restored. Afghan identity has been “recovered and revived.” And “we are extremely grateful. The Afghans owe George Bush and the United States a lot.”
He says that people don’t know enough about Afghanistan pre-Autumn 2001. They forget, or never knew, how desperate it was — how persecuted it was. Karzai gives a detailed reminding.
Later, I ask a different question: “Is al Qaeda gaining strength or losing strength?” Just a few days ago, Candidate Obama made a statement that shocked me. He said, “Al Qaeda’s leadership is stronger than ever.” I’m not sure what he means by “leadership.”
In any event, Karzai says, “They are losing, definitely losing. Definitely losing.” You read about “spectacular attacks,” particularly from suiciders. But this is a sign of the terrorists’ very weakness: They lack conventional resources, and they lack manpower. Their popularity is ebbing away.
They themselves gripe about this, in their internal memoranda and lectures to the Muslim world.
Another journalist asks Karzai whether he has any fear for his life (which is threatened all the time). “None!” Karzai says. “None!” He has confidence in his security, and confidence in general, it seems. I don’t know whether anything could shake his serenity and cheer.
Toward the end of the session, I ask yet another question. It goes something like this: “Some say that the American occupation of Afghanistan is a good occupation, and that the American occupation of Iraq is a bad occupation. Others say, they are essentially the same: The Americans are helping Afghan society against its predators, and they are helping Iraqi society against its. What do you say?”
Karzai ignores Iraq entirely (which, in my experience, is uncharacteristic of him, because he is very frank and direct). But he reiterates what America has done for Afghanistan. America has given that nation “more than we could have dreamed of,” he says. Repeating himself, he says, “You can’t imagine what Afghanistan was,” and then he recites statistics: which placed Afghanistan at the bottom of the world.
There was only one TV station, he notes — government-run — and “it was a bad one. It’s still a bad one!” Now there are 14 or 16 of them, privately owned, and there are hundreds of newspapers.
He says that Afghanistan must work diligently to take advantage of these waves of help, “because we will not get this opportunity again, not in our wildest dreams.”
On the subject of Bush, one of the journalists teases him a little. He says, “You’re the only one who supports him.” Karzai responds that he doesn’t care — he’s not going to criticize someone just because others do; he will not “jump on a bandwagon.” “Others can say what they have to say. I have my own opinion. And my judgment is one of praise and recognition.”
He even allows that he has argued with U.S. senators over Bush, irritating them. I can just see it!