Any one of them individually much less all of them simultaneously. No, he was not demented. No, he was not on meds. None that i nkewknew of. In a few weeks time when the messed president of afghanistan is that man will lead one from a change for the better and the 12 plus, nearly 13 years that Harmid Karzai assumed his office. While today Harmid Karzai finds himself strongly criticized. I believe to search and Detailed Analysis of his administration and his presidency of him as a man will return a balanced appraisal of his legacy. And how it was that after all these years of conflict, afghanistan could have come so far under his leadership. Thank you. Thank you general. There is a huge amount there that we will be able to engage with a little bit later on. Now you have put me in the position of doing something that you wisely have never done which is to ask an afghan what he thinks of president karzai and his legacy. The floor is yours. Thank you, scott. Im humbled to be part of such a distinct panel. I wanted to read a few passages from the article i recently wrote called after karzai. I walked around for an hour trying to find a copy. I could not. So it tells you how well i know d. C. Its in everybodys briefcases. They are all reading it. So i will read a couple passages and i will have a few remarks about the president s domestic policy, domestic legacy and his local governance. In providing the context for this passage, i will go back to one of the points the general of the general emphasized and how difficult it is to predict a sitting president s legacy and how challenging it is. So. Here is the passage the afghanistan that karzai leaves behind is a more inclusive and cohesive country than the fractured mess he inherited. Among my peers, educated young urbanites connected to the world and provided with free expression, there is a sense of nostalgia. Hes largely seen as a man of great personal dignity who despite his shortcomings, tried to minimize the bloodshed that my generation was born into. Our afghanistan is shaped by principles karzai saw as nonnegotiable. But because of the presents style of leadership, these gainess appeared tenuous. Under karzai a free press loss and but every time threats against it emerged, they have been blunted not by the institutions or laws karzai put in place but by the president s personal intervention. The same can be said of womens participation in society, which has grown tremendously. Bwith few institutional safeguards. Even the. Future role of the warlords is uncertain karzais kept most of these men off balance and he reserves deserves credit for doing so. Yet these men are not gone from public life. They have continued to profit from contracts and investments largely tied to the presence of foreign militaries vested economic interest is a major factor that keeps them loyal to the democratic system. Indeed in1 12. 5 years, many have sanitized their images, these warlords. More politically correct language. For better or worse, their sons and daughters who seem more attuned to democratic practices are now beginning to step into their father shoes. Karzais National Security advisor says he doubts anyone could have fared better than karzai in such a fragmented society. Yet the next president of afghanistan will inherit a broken chain of command, weak institutions, and a variety of local powers that may prove difficult to bring to heel. All the more so because he will let the personal connections that karzai worked so hard to cultivate. The question whether the forces from the past will succeed again or whether modernizing forces will take the country forward this has not been finalized. Almost none of the achievements made under karzai appear your reversible. He lamented. Instead, afghanistan remains a place a stop between modernity and its own splintered history. Which way it will move next is anyones guess. So this is, i saw the president about a week after the first round of elections to find a successor to him in april. And it was, the feeling at that time was that he had done a good job staying neutral in elections. There was a sense of jubilation about 7 Million People had turned out to vote. And karzai had proved his critics wrong. There are a lot of theories that he would change the constitution. In april when i wrote this all that seemed faults. And the article went to print and in the one month period until the article came out, a lot changed. To go back to the difficult nature of predicting karzais legacy. In that one month until the article came out, yet another round of elections, a runoff because the first round did not have a clear winner. And after that runoff, there were allegations of karzai meddling in the election. One of the frontrunners alleged that there was a triangle of conspiracy. A bill of villa Abdullah Abdullah alleged there was a tribal of conspiracy trying to steal the election. So a lot changed, and i started questioning some of the things i had written. But im glad that most of the questions that i had discussed in the article deals with his 12 years of leadership and his particularly his style of local governance. And id like to make a few remarks about that and what sort of legacy he leaves behind. I think at the end of the day the legacy that matters is the legacy on the ground. Yes, the relationship with nato. Yes, the relationship with the United States will matter. And it will be a question to history. But what he leaves behind on the ground, especially to my generation a generation that sort of as a product of his 13 years will matter a lot. So if we go back to a sense of euphoria that the ambassador mentioned about 2002. When karzai came to power, there was an enormous responsibility, enormous mandate to build institutions. Afghanistan was pretty fractured over three decades of war. And even the palace of karzai that he came to in kabul, i remember during the taliban days. People could take the shortcut through the palace. There were no institutions. Shepherds could bring their herds to the palace to graze on the gardens. Because the center of power during the taliban was inn counterpart. Kandahar. The biggest mandate for president karzai was to build institutions. Unfortunately, looking back at it 12 years later, thats been one of his weaknesses. He did not build institutions the way he should have for us. He personalized politics so much that the president as as a lea der got involved in local matters. He had a disregard for the chain of command in terms of local governance. He always directly involve himself. Sort of undermining the mandate he had for building institutions. So one of the biggest weaknesses of president karzai looking back was that. And when i asked him that question why did he not build institutions, he had his reasons. And that reason goes t handicaps he had over the past 12 yearso two, which really shape his style of local governance. In 2002, when he took over the government, it was a government that was handed to him. He did not have a say in choosing any cap members any governors, or any local. District chiefs he was put at the helm of the government he did not trust. What he did was develop in formal networks as the general mentioned. Informal networks to use for his government. So the first handicap was that that it was not his government. He did not trust the government. He relied an informal sources. The second handicap i think what that he develops towards 2009 was that he started mistrusting internationals. And he started believing that his government was in the pocket of the internationals. So he could not trust his governors because they were closer to the internationals. And the internationals were conspiring against him. These two factors played a major role in why he did not trust his own institutions and why he did not put enough effort into building this institution stronger. I will give you one example of what i mean by relying on, having a disregard for the chain of command. There was a man named he was a former taliban commander. Very interesting character. This big man. If you look at his history he fought everyone he worked with. He was first with the mujahedin. Then he came to the taliban. And he started fighting omar. In 2008, when helmand wasnt a difficult situation there was a consensus that the british troops had made a mess out of helmand. Karzai started experimenting in his local government. He reached out to this local taliban leader and he tried to turn him and appointed as district governor. It was an interesting experiment to see if he could neutralize the insurgency locally. But the problem was that karzai directly was in contact with this district chief. Going around his cabinet Level Ministry for local governments going around his professional provincial governor and directly talking to the district chief. The district chief is a colorful character. Every time he would come to kabul, and not let the cabinet no. He would call the president s office. Im here to see the president. In a country where building institutions should have been a priority, he directly involve himself at such a local level. And what happened in the process was undermining that sort of local governmance chain of command. I will read you a couple of quotes. My interview with the president got very philosophical. And one of the yes, karzai is very traditional in his way of talking and in his beliefs. But one of his cabinet ministers told me that when he starts speaking in english he seems as modern a leader as any out there, because his education was in politics and philosophy in english. When he speaks in english, you do not see the tribal side as much. So my interview with him was in english. It was a friday, a day off in afghanistan. He was in a good mood. I asked him about relying on these informal sources networks instead of his own government institutions. He said, my style of leadership was not in the sense of western president , relying on government institutions. I relied the very least on government institutions. I relied the very least on government institutions. I was more an alliance with and relying upon the afghan people. All my decisions, my statements were based on the information that i received from the people in the country, not his own government institutions. I said, doesnt that undermine your mandate to build institutions . He said, no, the government has to be built up. It does not have to be fake we admired. And kept weak. He said it was a realization of a true situation on the ground. The facts on the ground were that the Afghan Government was weak that it had no capacity no means of movement that it could not provide the president of the country with the information that related to the facts on the ground. That is why he relied on these informal sources of information and Informal Networks. But it think there was a misinformed analysis in his decision to rely on these Informal Networks and Tribal Networks. President karzai wrote an essay in 1980 analyzing how the k ing used tribes as a bulwark of stability for his regime. He kept the tribes at a distance. He had a Good Relationship and that gave the regime 40 years the stability. He wrote about that, how that was important to the king. The problem was that president karzai ruled on that mentality about 40 years later. And during those three to four decades of conflict, that those tribal structures have been completely disrupted. What the conflict did was create a new generation of local leaders who had guns, drug money, and no local legitimacy. Karzai comes in in 2002, relies on these what he thinks are Tribal Networks but in fact, they are a new generation of local leaders that are difficult to distinguish from warlords, because they have guns, drug money. And they do not have that legitimacy associated with tribal elders in the past. I want to comment on two other things about karzais legacy. One was an issue with the general referred to of his views as a commanderinchief. The perception on the ground among afghans is that karzai never became commanderinchief. I asked him that question. I asked him, mr. President when your soldiers die in the line of duty, you do not stand with them. That is the perception. A few months ago there was an incident where 20 something Afghan Army Soldiers were killed. Their bodies were brought to kabul. Karzai had a trip planned to sri lanka on that day. He canceled the trip using the death of the soldiers as a pretext but he remained in his palace. Building election coalitions rather than attending the funeral of the soldiers. I askedh i him mr. President , the people believe you never became commanderinchief. He said, yes i never became commanderinchief for two reasons. One, im an absolute pacifist in my heart. So the contradiction here is that you have a president in time of war, 12 years of war who is a pacifist. The second reason is that is that id didnt believe in this war. This was not war. This was conspiracy. It was fascinating to me. I asked him whether you see it as a conspiracy or as a war your shoulders die every day. As commander in chief expected to show appreciation. He said, i do. He pounded the table. Thats western propaganda. Which is funny because i was a local asking that question. I was not a western journalist. His views on the war were fascinating to me. The final issue that i would like to dclose with is that the perception of karzai is that he is a tremendous political tactician in terms of building consensus, in terms of if you go back to 2002, the way he came to power, he did not have a militia. He did not have a political network. Yet 12 years later he is the most powerful man in the country. That shows he has political genius. In terms of political tactics. But the criticism is that karzai was never a visionary leader. And i asked that question. Mr. President , the perception is that you did not have a vision for this country, that you are a great tactician trying to keep the fragile stability together but you did not have a picture of where you want to see the country 10 years from now. The luxury that president karzai had is sore rare. No other leader would have the amount of resources he had, the International Support he had yet he lacked vision. When i spoke to those closest to him, who worked with him they, they say he never defined of clear vision that this is where i want to see afghanistan 10 years from now, 20 years from now. He had crucibles. He had principles. One of the principles was the freedom of press, the freedom of expression. He has been good on the issue of womens rights within the context. That he has to please these tribal parts of the country. But at the same time he has to work towards slow progress, institutionalizing t safeguards for women. He had principles but he did not have a clear vision. I want to see afghanistan like singapore 10 years from now. Like in iran or pakistan. Not a clear picture. Those closest to him say that if it is one thing to have a vision and not publicized it. It is another to not even sort of paint a picture of that vision to those closest to you who work with you every day in trying to help you move the country forward. I think the question that i try to raise in the piece but a question that is important to me also is to ask whether it is possible to be a visionary in the circumstances that karzai ruled in. I think the general message that we should see this as a learning experience of looking at a leader and his challenges. That is one of the more fascinating questions. That is somebody like karzai is not sure of his physical or political survival everyday, especially if you go back to 2002. Can he afford to be a visionary . I went oto kind of hard kandahrar. In september 2002, he was attending his brothers wedding in kandahar. He got preclose to being killed just a few months into his presidency. He was waiting at the crowds. A young man in Police Uniform started opening fire at him from close range. He ducked. The governor of kandahar got a bullet in his ear. There was this young man a very big fan o f karzai he jumped on the assassin and saved karzai. I went to kandahar to trace the young mans story and ask his family was that sacrifice worth it . When you look back at it 12 years later, t his young man made karzais 12 years ago but its possible. Was the sacrifice worth it . And the young mans brother had a very emotional answer and a very candid answer. He said, sometimes when i think about it we we have at the house. We have a good family. All we want is our brother back. The natural answer. But then his, he said i have a nineyearold daughter. And yet his second child was asking for his second ice cream. They have a bakery. So i was interviewing at his bakery. He said sometimes when i think about it, my girl is in. Fourth grade and sometimes when i think about it, if my brother had not made that sacrifice in 2002, maybe this would not have been possible. There wouldve been more chaos, more bloodshed, and maybe my daughter would not be in fourth grade right now. So tisits that mixed legacy. But i think we ought to ask that question that in the circumstances of that karzai ruled in a very fragmented society, unsure of his physical and political survival everyday, can a reader afford to be a visionary . They give i thank you. I want to ask one question before we open it up. It is fastening especially listening to those who have been in ka recently and have been able to ask the president these questions about what his legacy is . But it think both of you minimize issue that i think is interesting to this audience and important to the future of afghanistan which is the relationship with the u. S. , because afghanistan is a country that depends a great deal on the the resources of the International Community, the willingness to support them in pahin theying the salaries of the government. May be a reaction from john. It scenes in the last year or several months, president karzai has gone out of his way to be and histagonistic particular whidbey u particularly with the u. S. The release of prisoners from bagram. These things seem to be antagonizing ann ally an ally that the next president will need to rely on. I do not know if either of you have insights. Is there something behind it more than a this a reaction . A visceral reaction . You mentioned the crimea. I discussed that with him. I do not think i will go into the. There is a little of bitter level of bitterness in him that has increased the last couple of years. It stems from the very early days. The general mentioned this. He came in not with his own government, cannot the government of his choosing. But what was he facing . He was facing a situation where there was a reluctance on the u. S. To try to regulate or reduce the powe