Success in Afghanistan Depends on Our Seemingly Powerless Partner There

Talk about big bets. President Obama’s speech at West Point was a careful blend of escalation and limitation, but it boiled down to wagering his presidency on Afghan President Hamid Karzai—a corrupt and hapless autocrat halfway around the world. In doing so, Obama resembles British prime ministers trying to plug holes in the British Empire or even Roman consuls trying to hold onto vassal states. This has always been the paradox of power—that the weaker party calls the tune.

Whether the “client state” was the khedivate in Egypt in the late 19th century or the Saigon regime in South Vietnam in the mid-20th, it’s the threat of collapse that carries the real authority. We’re familiar with “asymmetrical war”—when terrorists with box cutters can take on the United States—but asymmetrical alliances are a much more common feature of human relations.

The principle extends beyond global politics. Banks are only as healthy as their weakest depositors. Bosses are dependent on their weak subordinates performing at some minimal level of competence. Spouses know that the weaker person—by failing to pull his or her weight—is often the one determining the future of the relationship.

So consider Hamid Karzai. The Afghan leader won only a single shout-out from the president at West Point. But Karzai is the key to American success. In the now-famous McChrystal Report, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) was mentioned 99 times in 66 pages. In the nine meetings Obama held to review AfPak policy, officials stressed that regional authorities would also be empowered, not just Kabul, but the debate returned again and again to bolstering Karzai and his security forces.

This is the tallest of orders. It’s not just that Karzai stole the last election and has a brother who runs a big area of the country but who's also a drug dealer and bilks the CIA. It’s that attrition in Karzai’s security forces means that the Afghan police force is actually smaller than it was a few years ago.

Culture shapes everything. Illiterate peasants don’t aspire to work for the government and, if recruited, often change their minds and flee. Those who stay often rip out the sinks in the brand-new American-built barracks and put them on the floor to wash their feet. They ignore new kitchens in favor of building fires indoors. Military discipline is an alien concept. Reading complex instructions for weapons systems is a bit of a problem if you can’t read.

Imagine if Obama sends 30,000 more troops—at a cost of $1 million per soldier—and nothing much changes by 2011. The president will have a hard time getting reelected.

On the other hand, imagine if Karzai shapes up, the Afghans see they have a better chance with Kabul than with the Taliban, and Obama manages to start withdrawing troops as promised. Then Obama goes into an election year having wound down not one but two wars. Throw in some economic recovery and you’re talking landslide.

I have no idea which way it will go and neither does Obama. But he’s increasing his odds of success by laying down the law to Karzai (“No blank checks”) and, more important, promising to begin leaving in 18 months.

John McCain and the Republican critics of Obama’s exit strategy have it exactly wrong. They say the enemy will wait us out if we promise to leave. But again, it’s not our enemies who call the tune; it’s our friends. It’s Karzai who will refuse to change his behavior if he thinks the commitment is open-ended, as it has been until now.

As Samuel Johnson said, nothing so focuses the mind as the prospect of one’s execution. If the U.S. exits without the establishment of a powerful Afghan army, the Taliban—or some other thug—will eventually execute Karzai.

The big question is whether Obama can convince Karzai that, as he said in his speech, we’re his partner for now, but not his “patron.”

Staying as long as it takes—the GOP position—risks making us look like permanent patrons creating permanent dependency, like the Soviet Union, only nicer. It was important that Obama looked straight into the camera at West Point and told the Afghan people: “We have no interest in occupying your country.” Words don’t count for much in Kandahar, but if repeated enough, maybe a few Afghans will believe them.

This hopeful scenario hardly constitutes faith in Karzai. He lied to President Bush for years in their teleconferences, and he could end up buffaloing Obama, too. But that’s in the nature of the relationship. Hamid is holding the cards.