Another moment of truth

International Crisis Group has put out its latest on Afghanistan, offering a definitive answer to the question of whether Karzai is worth it:

Any plan that fails to deal with the decay in Kabul will not succeed. President Hamid Karzai no longer enjoys the legitimacy and popularity
he once had and he has subsequently lost his ability to stitch together lasting political deals.

This is followed by a well-documented litany of failures in areas directly relevant to whether the mission as a whole can succeed.

But ICG then somehow manages to turn 180 degrees and recommend, in a backhanded sort of way, engagement rather than exit:

Overcoming the trust deficit between the Afghan government, the Afghan people and the international community will rely on more concerted efforts to increase political representation, to expand access to justice and to confront corruption.

This amounts to no more than wishing it weren’t so–if it wanted to be listened to, ICG would have done better to go where its analysis points: drawdown, presumably on the currently agreed NATO schedule.

PS:  Later in the day, the New York Times added fuel to the fire with a report on high level corruption in Afghanistan.