Customer Reviews

Karzai: The Failing American Intervention and the Struggle for Afghanistan

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This is a decent book about a decent man. But rather than providing any penetrating analysis of the leader of one of the world's most volatile and critical states, Nick Mills provides a sugar-coated and overly simplistic story, reducing its utility significantly.

The perspective provided is effectively Hamid Karzai on Hamid Karzai. The text is based in quotes from the author's interviews with Karzai followed by some supporting paragraphs from the author. Mills seems to have spoke with no one but Karzai. He does not quote Karzai's family, friends, aides, associates, rivals, or critics. The book, published in the fifth year of Karzai's rule over Afghanistan, does not provide the reader with any insight into the complexity of Karzai, his internal conflicts and perhaps contradictions.

There are glaring omissions regarding Karzai's life:

- The reader is provided a cursory mentioning of Karzai's long-standing relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency. A deeper study of Karzai's ties with U.S. intelligence in the 1980s (and perhaps more importantly in the 1990s) would be beneficial.

- Karzai's break with the Taliban is presented to be too clean and neat. Alternative sources suggest otherwise.

- Mills fails to look at Karzai's close partnership with Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan American and former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan under Karzai. Khalilzad, in other sources, is reported to have spoken with Karzai twice-daily and effectively set Karzai's agenda (serving, in a sense, as a de facto chief of staff). Moreover, their relationship goes back to the 1980s to the Afghan jihad and Khalizad is alleged by some to have been instrumental in securing Karzai's election as president. Their friendship is an important story untold.

- Mills asks no questions regarding allegations of Karzai's relationship with foreign oil companies that, at the very least, reached out to the Taliban.

- There's no discussion of the allegations that Karzai's brother, Wali, is involved in the drug trade.

A critical analysis of the NATO-led operation in Afghanistan only comes at the end, in the book's epilogue. We see some criticism of Afghan culture, even from Karzai. And that's helpful, but very weak. Karzai's Afghan nationalism is admirable. It's very much what his country needs. But all too often he blames foreigners for his country's problems. And while that might stir up Afghan nationalism, it won't help the landlocked gain peace with its neighbors.

Finally, there are a few errors in the text. Balochistan is erroneously described as being part of Pakistan's tribal areas (pp.52). It's actually one of its four provinces. Also, a quote from Karzai gives the impression that the drug trade flourished under the Taliban. The group actually significantly reduced opium cultivation. The opposite can be said for Karzai's government. Indeed, many of its officials (ranging from low to senior level) benefit from the drug trade.

While the book does a good job setting the stage on the man known as Karzai, it would have been nice to be exposed to some of the other relationships he has with the folks he currently has running the country.

This book gives the reader an honest look at the levels of intrigue that exist when the U.S. tries to "promote democracy" on foreign soil. It also gives a wonderful portrait of a leader who is trying to maintain the integrity of his nation against incredible odds. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the politics of the war on terror and for anyone who has already forgotten that the war on terror began in Afghanistan. At times the book sweeps the reader up in stories that could be in a thrilling action/adventure novel -- but remember: this is real and current history in the making.

Nick Mills was field director of Boston University's Afghan Media Project when he first met Hamid Karzai. For three months in 2005, he interviewed Karzai, now Afghanistan's president. Neither mentioned Karzai's role as consultant for US oil firm Unocal, or his support for the Taliban in 1996.

Mills observes that throughout the 1980s most US aid to Afghanistan went to the fundamentalists who became the Taliban. Yet the Afghan people rejected the Taliban before Western ground forces intervened in 2001.

As Mills writes, "The rapid defeat of the Taliban in 2001, and the countrywide celebration of their ouster, calls into question the need for the large contingent of coalition forces ..." He regrets the huge civilian casualties due to USAF and RAF bombing and suggests that Afghan regional forces `would have been more successful in keeping the Taliban at bay than the Western coalition has been'.

Mills states that Bush's decisions `have consistently undermined the security of Afghanistan'. He let bin Laden escape, heroin production has soared, rebuilding has stalled and most aid money goes to Western `consultants' and corrupt officials.

Mills concludes that occupation by NATO forces and private security firms is fuelling national resistance: NATO's intervention is failing.

Hamid Karzai comes across as an intelligent man, rooted in his culture yet committed to restoring normalcy to his country by pulling it up by its bootstraps from feudalism into modernism. A man aware of the window of opportunity he has to achieve his objectives. Although not explicitly stated, one senses between the lines the disappointment Karzai must feel for being left out in the cold by the US in favor of Iraq.

The language is straightforward and simple. The book can be read in a few hours. Much of the information is known but there are nuggets that bring the man himself, an alien culture and country closer to a Western reader. If read in combination with Rory Stewart's ethnographic travelogue of his month-long walk across Aghanistan "The Spaces In Between", the reader will have a framework for evaluating US policy and actions on the ground in Afghanistan.

I have just given the book as a gift.