The Puppet Tries to Cut His Strings

Watching Washington’s growing anger Afghan president Hamid Karzai, one recalls the unhappy endings of such former US allies as South Vietnam’s Diem, Iran’s Shah, Indonesia’s Suharto, Nicaragua’s Somoza, and Pakistan’s Zia ul-Haq.

Washington has been loudly hinting it would like to oust Karzai, but so far it has not managed to identify a suitable replacement who commands any respect or tribal support from Afghans.

The Obama administration flirted with trying to replace Karzai by the North Alliance chief, Abdullah Abdullah, but he had too many Communist and drug-dealer skeletons in his closet.

The Obama administration is blaming the largely powerless Karzai, a former CIA `asset,’ for America’s failure to defeat Taliban.

Washington accused its man Karzai of rigging last year’s elections. That’s true. But the US pre-rigged the Afghan elections by excluding all parties opposed to Western occupation. The US is doing the same thing on Iraq’s elections.'

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