The belated declaration of Hamid Karzai as the winner of Afghanistan's election is a disaster for American and British efforts to find a way out of their never-ending mission there. An election that had been designed to bolster the legitimacy of the Afghan government has had precisely the opposite effect, producing a president elected only through widespread and systematic fraud. Worse still, a counter-insurgency strategy dependent on improving the legitimacy of the Afghan government has foundered as the US finds itself in a similar position to the one it faced in South Vietnam: supporting an illegitimate government with a diminishing ability to control its own territory, all the while trying to find a way not to lose the war.

In many respects, the US and UK and their Nato allies have no one to blame but themselves for this predicament. As President Obama argued on the campaign trail, the situation in Afghanistan deteriorated because high-level attention in the Bush administration drifted towards Iraq by mid-2002. Afflicted with a lack of resources and personnel, Nato's mission lacked the kind of strategic vision needed to deal with a blossoming drug trade and an ever more sophisticated insurgency.

Meanwhile, the Karzai government, initially given a mandate to form a new national political consensus among Afghanistan's diverse ethnic communities, wasted no time lining its pockets and filling government ministries with incompetent cronies. Without intent but with considerable sacrifice, the US and UK wound up fathering an illegitimate government, perceived as hostile and corrupt by the large swaths of the population.

The fraud that marred the recent elections is a symptom, not a cause, of this crisis of legitimacy in the Afghan state. An eight-year nation-building effort has failed to create the institutions or political culture needed to hold reliable elections. It does not matter whether Karzai deliberately stole the election or whether his overzealous supporters stuffed the ballot boxes. What matters is that the institutions of government were so weak and partisan that the appropriate body – here the Independent Election Committee, staffed by Karzai loyalists – could not take a firm line even after clear evidence of vote fraud on a massive scale.

It took strong-arming by Senator John Kerry to persuade Karzai to consent to a second round. Even then, no one was able to persuade him to share power with his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah. Now that Karzai has won the election by default, thousands of Abdullah's supporters feel disenfranchised, thus adding to the ranks of the many who distrust the Kabul government.

This crisis of legitimacy matters to the US and UK because a counter-insurgency strategy presumes that the counter-insurgent forces can out-govern the opposing side. To get out of Afghanistan will require that the Karzai government provide better services and be more responsive to popular demands than the Taliban shadow government that exists in much of the country. But as General Stanley McChrystal noted in his report, the Karzai government has been top-down, unresponsive to popular needs and unengaged with traditional tribal governance structures.

By contrast, the Taliban shadow government, however brutal, is at least efficient and connected to local governance structures where it operates. The US and UK are struggling in Afghanistan not just because the Taliban have ratcheted up the tempo of their attacks but also because the Karzai government is being outperformed by the Taliban in the provision of some government services.

To turn the tide in Afghanistan, the US and UK need to avoid the Saigon trap: supporting and bankrolling an illegitimate government indefinitely, out of a lack of better alternatives. Just as many US and international officials are now disgusted with Karzai, many US officials were repulsed by the corrupt and nepotistic regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam in the early 1960s. But fear of the Communists and a lack of better ideas meant that Diem was given a long leash, which he then used to steal elections and install family members in government. Just as it was in Vietnam, the US is unwilling to take on the burden of fighting and governing itself, yet it does not trust its partner enough to allow it to succeed or fail on its own terms.

To avoid the Saigon trap, the US needs to seek ways to restore its leverage over the Karzai government. At present, the US is punching beneath its weight in Afghanistan – precisely because the mission is so important. Obama has called Afghanistan the "necessary war" and promised to redouble efforts to repair its governance and beat back the Taliban insurgency. But the perverse consequence of throwing his full support behind Nato efforts was to signal to the Afghan government that the US could not afford to lose, thus undercutting American leverage in the region where it is needed most.

This predicament – where we need the Afghan government to function more than its leaders need it to – is one of the reasons why encouraging reform has been so difficult. Obama has called for Karzai to open a "new chapter" in the legitimacy of the government of Afghanistan and has made clear that he expects the most corrupt members of the government – including those profiting from the drug trade – to be sacked. But as Karzai's first speech made clear, he is no mood to acquiesce to foreign demands. Now that he has won this bitterly fought election and has been appointed, Karzai will resist reform in full knowledge that neither the American nor British governments can afford to see outright failure in Afghanistan.

This situation must change. The US and UK need to remind the Karzai government that their patience is not infinite. Despite Karzai's election, they need to be firm about their demands for reform and accountability, and link them to real policy shifts in the event of non-compliance.

For example, the US and UK should make their financial and political support conditional on real reform. If the Karzai government does not take steps towards reducing corruption and improving capacity for governing in the next six to 12 months, the US should substantially curtail some categories of aid and assistance. Further, Obama should not unconditionally authorise an additional 40,000 troops without real concessions on power-sharing, corruption and government accountability. We must leverage the deployment of additional troops to ensure that the other half of McCrystal's formula for ending the war in Afghanistan – improved governance for the Afghan people – happens as well.

After eight years of unconditional and support, the US and UK have found themselves in an unhappy marriage with a government that they do not trust and have failed to influence. We must now remind that government that we will not let a fear of losing force us to indefinitely fight a war on its behalf.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/03/afghanistan-karzai-uk-us

• Go Back

Related in this Category