It's not Kabul that is important, Pakistan is

[deziloooooo]

A article with karzi after the presidents announcement of troop with drawls and some thoughts about what is really important in this area and what is the best we can hope for.

It might also help some of us understand , if you feel the analyst ideas are correct, as to why Pakistan is the key here, they are the ones who have 600,000 men under arms..possible help answer some of those questions of why we are so involved with Pakistan, why it's felt they are the key , not Afghanistan.
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Fareed Zakarias thoughts after a interview with Karzi of Afganistan, also a discussion with Tom Forman..of the 'Arena "

June 24th, 2011
12:00 PM ET

Hamid Karzai resigned to troop withdrawal

I interviewed Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday after President Obama announced the drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. I've posted clips of this discussion here on U.S. aid and here on the drawdown. I reflected on the conversation with guest host of In the Arena Tom Foreman.

Here's the transcript:

Tom Foreman: Fareed, thanks for joining me. Let me ask you first. What was President Karzai's reaction to the president's speech here?

Fareed Zakaria: It was surprising in that he seemed completely comfortable with the drawdown, with the fact that American troops were going to reverse the surge.

I thought he might express some unease about it. But Hamid Karzai, I think, has realized that there is no purely American, purely military solution to his problems. And he's resigned to that.
You say you're surprised by that. He's been pretty critical of the American presence there. Some might say, I'd expect him to be happy that we're getting out.

You know but he plays that game that when there is outrage about some kind of civilian casualties he says that. But then he asks for more American troops and greater endurance and - so I don't think that he really is - you know, look, the American troops are protecting his government. Obviously protecting him personally. Obviously I think he'd prefer more rather than less but seems to have come to grips with the fact that he's not going to have more. But I've always thought it has been a mistake for the administration to publicly condemn him, to constantly raise doubts about him.

Because look, the alternative to Hamid Karzai is not George Washington or Winston Churchill. The alternative to Hamid Karzai would be another Afghan leader of questionable competence and stability and - you know, and high ethical standards. We are not choosing, you know, the ideal leader here.

You have hinted at this notion, as others have, that a military solution to what's happening there really is not the end. There has to be more. Where does Hamid Karzai stand in terms of the more, the civilian outreach that truly results in peace that can outlive the presence of guns?

He seems to have come to terms with it. He seems to have realized that a negotiated political settlement with the Taliban is inevitable. I think there was a hope that you could crush the Taliban, and perhaps with, I don't know, half a million troops you could. I very much doubt it. Remember, the Soviets were in there for a long time as well.

The Taliban represent in large part of the Pashtun community in Afghanistan, the Pashtuns make up half the population. So you're talking about a large indigenous force. These aren't foreign terrorists. These are homegrown Afghans. They're not going anywhere.

So if you look at every civil war, the way civil wars end is you negotiate with the other side and you bring them back in, in some way. Karzai seems to recognize that this is going to happen.

You know the trick is everyone seems to recognize it, nobody seems to want to make the concessions that will make it happen.

You say that the Taliban is not going anywhere. One of the problems has been the Taliban has always been going somewhere across the border into Pakistan. Right now our relations with Pakistan are not very good. And if we back out of Afghanistan and they keep drifting back and forth playing both sides of the border, how do we not wind up in three years exactly where we were 10 years ago which is to say they now have a free range to do what they want?

Well, Tom, you hit it on the central dilemma which is why, in my opinion, the number of troops, the pace of withdrawal really doesn't matter. Because at the end of the day, the Pakistani military is the largest force in the region, 600,000 troops, very powerful military with deep connections to the Taliban.

So it really all depends on what their attitude is. And having more American troops there doesn't really change that because at the end of the day they know one day we'll leave. So do we have the ability to get the Pakistanis to play ball, to recognize that they should be a force for stability? That's - that's in some ways far more important than whether we leave 60,000 troops in Afghanistan, 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, because at the end of the day the Pakistanis will always have this trump card. That they have the safe havens, they have the relationships with the Taliban.

And if they intend to play that destabilizing role, I don't know what we can do about it. You know it's a conversation between Washington and Islamabad, that's important, not Kabul.

If you had to predict, do you think that three or four years from now we'll be able to say this is what we gained by being in Afghanistan? Or do you think we'll be saying, we don't know what we got out of this?

I don't think it will look - Afghanistan will go back to a 2001 scenario. The Taliban are different from al Qaeda. They were sheltering them in 2001. I think they've learned their lesson. Al Qaeda is weak and battered. So I think we will be able to say we are safer now. Al Qaeda is a much diminished force and that those Taliban that have returned are very different and are not - and do not have global jihadist aims. In other words, they don't want to kill Americans.

That will have to be enough because I don't think we'll be able to get more which would be a stable Afghanistan, that was a functioning democracy with a government in full control of its borders, and a shining example of nation building. None of that is likely to happen.

And let's hope that is enough for all the American families and the other coalition forces' families who have been there fighting for all these years"