Former Afghan leader urges sanctions on Pakistan officials
Afghanistan’s former president lashed out at both the United States and Pakistan on Wednesday, accusing them of using the Afghan war to further their own interests and calling on Washington to sanction Pakistani military and intelligence officials.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Hamid Karzai said his country is in “terrible shape,” 16 years after the U.S.led invasion that toppled the Taliban. Karzai became president shortly after the fall of the Taliban and held office until 2014.
In recent weeks, Kabul has been battered by a wave of attacks claimed alternately by the Taliban and a rival Islamic State affiliate, which killed scores of people and brutally exposed the U.S.-backed government’s failure to secure the capital.
“The U.S. cannot tell us ‘well if I am not here, you will be worse off.’ We are in a terrible shape right now. … We want to be better. We want to have peace. We want to have security,” Karzai said.
There are now as many as 16,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and a special training unit is scheduled to deploy early this year. After the U.S. and NATO forces formally concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014 and shifted to a training role, the Taliban stepped up their attacks and an affiliate of the Islamic State group emerged in Afghanistan. That same year, Karzai’s second and final term in office ended.
By then, his relationship with the United States deteriorated to the extent that he refused to sign a bilateral security agreement with Washington, leaving it to his successor, Ashraf Ghani to do so.
Today, Afghanistan’s National Unity Government, paralyzed by bickering and feuding, shares power between Ghani and his Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. The powersharing deal was brokered by then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Karzai called it an American creation and said it “undermined Afghan democracy and the Afghan constitution.”
In the early years of Karzai’s administration, which was harshly criticized as corrupt, oversight of the war was nonexistent and commanders allied to the U.S.-led coalition often steered their American partners toward attacks against their own enemies in an effort to settle old scores, rather than build their nation.
In the interview, Karzai did not hide his frustration. He believes Washington wants to establish permanent bases in Afghanistan solely to project power in the region, while Pakistan wants to turn Afghanistan into a client state.