As corruption soars, a weary Karzai loses powerful friends.


By DEXTER FILKINS


KABUL, Afghanistan - 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 as the senators walked out. Today, of course, Mr.Biden is the vice president.

The world has changed for Mr.Karzai, and for Afghanistan, too. A White House favorite in each of the seven years that he has led this country since the fall of the Taliban, Mr.Karzai now finds himself not so favored at all. Not by Washington, and not by his own.

In the White House, President Obama said he regarded Mr.Karzai as unreliable and ineffective. At home, Mr.Karzai faces a widening insurgency and a population that blames him for the manifest lack of economic progress and the corrupt officials that seem to stand at every doorway of his government.

Now, perhaps crucially, an election looms. Mr.Karzai says he will ask the voters to return him to the palace for another five-year term. The election is set for August 20, after what promises to be a violent and eventful summer. In a poll commissioned by a group of private Afghans, 85 percent of those surveyed said they intended to vote for someone other than Mr.Karzai.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration will have to decide what it wants from Mr.Karzai as it tries to make good on its promise to reverse the course of the war. Or whether it wants him at all.

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.

“Under President Karzai, we have gone from a better situation to a good situation to a not-so-bad situation to a bad situation? and now are going to worse,”said Abdullah, a former foreign minister in Mr.Karzai’s government who may now challenge him for the presidency (and who, like many Afghans, has only one name).“That is the trend.

“So let us say Karzai stays in power through the summer and that nothing serious happens and then he wins re-election,”Dr.Abdullah said.“Then there will be two scenarios, and only two scenarios? a rapid collapse or a slow unraveling.”

People close to Mr.Karzai say the man is exhausted, wary of his enemies and worried for his physical safety. He feels embattled and underappreciated, they say, but is utterly determined, in spite of it all, to run again and win.

At a news conference on February 3, Mr.Karzai accused unnamed people in the American government of trying to“pressure”him to stay silent over the deaths of Afghan civilians in attacks by Americans.

Mr.Karzai did not touch on larger frustrations, which Afghan and Western officials here say he harbors, about the overall American effort, namely, the relegation of Afghanistan to second-tier status after the invasion of Iraq.

Yet for all the doubts about Mr.Karzai? and for all the strains he labors under? he remains by far the strongest politician in the country. He commands the resources of the Afghan state, including the army and the police, and billions of dollars in American and other aid that flows into the treasury.

Perhaps for that reason, of the many prominent Afghans who have hinted that they may run against him, including Dr.Abdullah and a former finance minister, Ashraf Ghani, on ly a handful of Afghans have so far declared their intentions. Some Afghan leaders say they will announce their candidacies soon, but it seems just as likely that they are waiting to see if Mr.Karzai stumbles.

As for the members of Mr.Obama’s team, they may yet discover that Mr.Karzai is the man they will be forced to deal with, whether they like him or not.

At the news conference, Mr.Karzai defended his record while acknowledging his own unpopularity.

“Well, I have been in government for seven years. It’s natural that I would not be as popular now as I was seven years ago.”