Great analysis as always from Juan Cole on Karzai's impossible situation even though he misses the mark with his comparison of Karzai to de Gaulle:
Karzai's problems do not derive from being crazed or a drug addict. Rather, he is in an impossible situation. He knows that the Obama administration came into office last year determined to remove him as indecisive and more of a problem than a solution. He responded by rigging the presidential election to ensure his hold on power. He presented the Americans with a fait accompli, which they reluctantly acknowledged and even embraced. (...) Karzai has responded to this difficult situation by blaming the US for some of his troubles, by reaching out to negotiate with figures such as Gulbadin Hikmatyar (not Taliban but mujahid or 'freedom fighter' in Ronald Reagan's terms)-- with whom the US would probably prefer he not be talking-- and then by adopting the rhetoric of mujahid or freedom fighter himself. (...) Karzai would very much like to likewise position himself as having brought greater security to his country and as having forced the US to set a withdrawal timetable for its exit. Karzai's outbursts and his apparently erratic statements actually just mark off his peculiar, almost DeGaulle-like situation (in being in his own mind a national liberator who in fact is deeply dependent on foreign allies. That humiliation and contradiction once led DeGaulle to warn that missiles could be aimed as easily at the US from France as toward the Soviet Union.
My beef with Cole's comparison is that Karzai is an empty suit whose sole objective is to remain in power at any cost. Charles de Gaulle, whatever one thinks of him had an ideology, political principles, a sense of what he felt France was and needed to be in the world. Moreover, he would not have given up those ideals to remain in power. Karzai is just posturing to show the Americans that he is irreplaceable and in case, they don't realize it, he will become an ideologue for political survival. Charles de Gaulle would have never become Churchill no matter what the circumstances were.
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