Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been widely quoted around the world saying that if the United States and its allies don't stop their pressure on him to reform his government, he will resign and join the Taliban.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper commented on this statement today: "We have men and women who are over there putting their lives on the line to help the population in its struggle against the Taliban," he said. "These remarks are not helpful and in the context of the dangerous work that our people are doing they are completely unacceptable to Canada and I'm sure the same is true for all of our allies."
(To be fair, a spokesperson for Mr. Karzai denied today that he made this statement as reported. Time will tell what the truth of it is. Mr. Harper seems to feel the original report is credible).
The Prime Minister is quite correct, as far as he goes. The President's statement is indeed completely unacceptable. But I would go a little farther.
Mr. Karzai leads a government we have been fighting to protect, for about as long as our country participated in the First and Second World Wars combined. What he now tells us is that he has no fundamental problems with the principles, practices or goals of the Taliban enemy we have been defending him from. He has also told us that if we keep asking him to address the electoral fraud, endemic corruption, and warlordism of his government, he is prepared to switch sides.
Both of the options Mr. Karzai is presenting are "completely unacceptable."
It is completely unacceptable that we will have spent a decade propping up a corrupt and undemocratic warlord state. It is also completely unacceptable that even the Afghan President is prepared to join the Taliban to prevent the goals we are supposedly fighting for - democracy, clean government, and ... what? Preventing Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for the people the president of that country is opening musing about joining.
The reasonable goals of the Afghan mission were accomplished within months of its start. Neither Canada, nor the United States, nor any of the other belligerents in this war are prepared to make the investment in blood and treasure required to make Afghanistan resemble Canada. Mr. Karzai has offered us the best possible proof of this. The President of Afghanistan wants to be a corrupt, unelected warlord or a Taliban.
All Canadians should honour the service and sacrifice of the women and men of our armed forces. And because that is so, neither of Mr. Karzai's options can possibly justify a single additional Canadian death.