The Forever Post

Dexter Filkins may be the best (war) reporter of our times. Remove the parenthetical phrase, as you like.

You can read the first chapter of his stunning book, The Forever War, here. As a war correspondent in both Afghanistan and Iraq, he knows his stuff about the War on Terror/Islamic Fundamentalism/Islam (select noun here according to personal or cultural perspective).

And now he's back in Afghanistan again. His most recent article highlights the incredible decline of Hamid Karzai, both in his country and in America. Here's the lede, then read on here.

A foretaste of what would be in store for President Hamid Karzai after the election of a new American administration came last February, when Joseph R. Biden Jr., then a senator, sat down to a formal dinner at the palace during a visit here.

Between platters of lamb and rice, Mr. Biden and two other American senators questioned Mr. Karzai about corruption in his government, which, by many estimates, is among the worst in the world. Mr. Karzai assured Mr. Biden and the other senators that there was no corruption at all and that, in any case, it was not his fault.

The senators gaped in astonishment. After 45 minutes, Mr. Biden threw down his napkin and stood up.

“This dinner is over,” Mr. Biden announced, according to one of the people in the room at the time. And the three senators walked out, long before the appointed time.

Narco-state, "unreliable," take your pick. And that's what American's foreign leadership (Hillary, Barack respectively) say. What's next for Afghanistan? 85 percent of the population intends to vote for someone else in th upcoming election.

With the insurgency rising, corruption soaring and opium blooming across the land, it perhaps is not surprising that so many Afghans, and so many in Washington, see President Karzai’s removal as a precondition for reversing the country’s downward surge.

But he still holds all of the power, and he could still take a turn for the populist. It depends on how the summer goes, before the election. Or perhaps not:

At a ceremony last month for the first graduates of Afghanistan’s National Military Academy, Mr. Karzai stood and addressed the assembled 84 cadets as well as a group of diplomats, including Mr. Wood. Mr. Karzai turned the occasion into a populist barnburner.

“I told America and the world to give us aircraft — otherwise we will get them from the other place!” Mr. Karzai roared, prompting applause. “I told them to give us the planes soon, that we have no more patience, and that we cannot get along without military aircraft!

“Give us the aircraft sooner or we will get them from the others!” Mr. Karzai roared again. “We told them to bring us tanks, too — otherwise we will get them from other place!”

Mr. Karzai never said what the “other place” was.