A Kingdom of Their Own

by Joshua Partlow

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  On July 28, 2014, three weeks after Hashmat had posted his Facebook rant about his destroyed wall, a teenage boy walked into Hashmat’s home on the first day of the Eid-al Fitr, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. The boy joined the crowd of guests who had come for alms. Hashmat kept a tray of five-hundred- and one-thousand-afghani notes, worth about ten and twenty dollars, respectively, and he or his guards would hand them to visitors. The boy, who carried fake identification, said that he was poor and needed money for his wedding. He was given three thousand afghanis and sent on his way. The next day, after the morning prayer, the boy returned. He wanted to thank Hashmat for his gift, to kiss the great man’s hand. The guards brushed him off. But Hashmat overheard and allowed the boy to draw close. The teenager grasped Hashmat’s hand and knelt into him. He also had a bomb beneath his turban. His last words before he exploded were “God is great.”

  Afterward, Qayum Karzai would blame the “armed opposition” and those who wanted only “chaos and disorder.” Ashraf Ghani wrote on Twitter about his “immense shock,” about the loss that “left a void.” Hashmat’s own legacy would be as divisive and disputed as all the others. Governor Wesa called him a “big wall for Kandahar.” Other relatives, who would never forgive him, registered no pity. “He was one of those balloons that got too high,” one of them said. “I’m glad he’s gone.” There wasn’t much more sympathy from President Karzai’s palace. “Just like all other Afghans who are the daily targets of terrorist attacks, our family, too, is no exception and as every other Afghan, we, too, will have to bear it.”

  Credit 20.1

  Mullah Abdul Qayum Popalzai inside the Red Mosque in Kandahar, where a suicide bomber blew himself up at Ahmed Wali Karzai’s memorial service. Popalzai would later be killed.

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  When I was back in the United States, from time to time I would visit a young Karzai relative. He walked me through the stories and legends of Karzais living and dead. He sketched out a family tree that, with all the intermarriage, looked more like a tangled thicket of vines. He lived in New York and watched with interest the machinations inside his family, but he had little interest in participating. It was all too sordid. “This is what happens when people’s only thirst is for power,” he told me once. But Hashmat’s death seemed to affect him more than other tragedies had. What died along with Hashmat, he thought, was the khan legacy of the Karzai family. No one wanted to take up the mantle or be the strongest one. As he put it: “The last temple crumbled.”

  “That was the light that we all tried to live up to. And we all failed,” he said. “But I would rather be a peasant here than a king in Afghanistan.”

  21

  THE ZERO OPTION

  THE CENTERPIECE OF THE AMERICAN PLAN for post-combat Afghanistan was a document known as the bilateral security agreement. It was intended to define how the United States would support Afghanistan militarily after 2014, when the combat phase ended and the bulk of the troops went home. The goal was plainly to avoid reliving the mistakes of the past. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, American support quickly evaporated, and its geopolitical attention focused elsewhere. The Soviet foreign aid dried up, the Communist government collapsed, and the subsequent Afghan civil war and general chaos throughout the state helped spawn the Taliban and provide refuge for al-Qaeda. The Obama administration wanted to keep some level of financial support so that the Afghan security forces could fight on their own and the government wouldn’t instantly crumble to the ground.

  The benefits of such an agreement for the Afghan government were clear: it would get a benefactor and protector in a dangerous neighborhood. The United States would agree in principle to pay for a good chunk of the country’s Army and police force years into the future, as well as providing the protection from regional rivals that a U.S. troop presence implied. The arrangement would have fewer tangible benefits for the United States. Besides access to bases for counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan or the region, what the Obama administration wanted amounted to an insurance policy that the American investment over the last decade in Afghanistan would not be completely in vain. Intelligence agencies estimated that within a year, the Taliban could recapture large portions of southern and eastern Afghanistan if the United States withdrew all its troops by the end of 2014. Nobody wanted to see that happen. But with Hamid Karzai in the palace, it would be difficult to reach any agreement. He’d developed the reputation, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates put it, as probably America’s most “troublesome ally in war since Charles de Gaulle in World War II.”

  Negotiations about America’s long-term presence in Afghanistan had been going on for most of Karzai’s second term. Karzai, from the beginning, wanted something binding. If he was going to commit to entangling his country’s fate with the American government into the future, he wanted to know that the United States would fight to defend Afghanistan from its rivals and pay for its survival. Karzai wanted a treaty, a mutual security agreement whereby an attack on Spin Boldak, say, was an attack on Washington, and the U.S. government would respond in kind. He wanted firm commitments on how much money would be given for how many years. The Americans considered these terms ridiculous. They told Karzai that guaranteeing billions in congressional allocations for Afghanistan from future U.S. administrations was simply unrealistic. Gates once dismissed Karzai’s talk of binding arrangements by saying it had taken Congress five years just to ratify benign agreements about sharing defense technology with Canada and Australia.

  Karzai had tried to confine American soldiers to their bases a full year before the end of the combat mission. At the same time, he wanted the U.S. military to commit to buying the Afghan military sophisticated weaponry such as F-22 fighter jets and Abrams tanks. Karzai complained to his advisers that the Soviets had left the Afghan military with hundreds of aircraft and thousands of tanks but the Americans weren’t giving anything close. He didn’t like how departing U.S. troops were taking with them all their high-tech tools or destroying things they couldn’t carry out.

  Karzai had demanded that any agreement be contingent on a full transfer of all detention centers to Afghan control. Regaining control of prisons had long been one of Karzai’s crusades, and American soldiers regularly delayed handing over their prisoners to Afghan custody, particularly at the Bagram prison. Karzai periodically issued public ultimatums to the Americans and made angry statements about how this prison represented a “breach of sovereignty.” By early 2013, American troops had authority for fewer than 20 percent of the thirty-eight hundred prisoners inside Bagram. The Americans considered a few dozen of them especially dangerous and likely to return to fight with the insurgency if released. Karzai had agreed with General Allen that he would not set these prisoners free, but then he refused to sign language to that effect when the two sides tried to finalize the deal. Allen felt Karzai had betrayed their agreement. Karzai accused Allen of holding hostages. In one meeting, Karzai ordered Allen to release all American-held detainees to Afghan custody by four o’clock that afternoon. Allen told him that this wasn’t going to happen. When Karzai’s demands were eventually met, he set free dozens of high-profile detainees from Bagram.

  The talks stumbled through the Koran burnings and the insider attacks and Robert Bales’s shooting of sixteen villagers. A milestone was reached in May 2012, when Obama flew to Kabul to sign what was known as a “strategic partnership” agreement, pledging American support for Afghanistan after 2014. But this accord was somewhat symbolic, a goodwill gesture, meant to tell the Taliban that they couldn’t just wait out the war. The negotiations redoubled almost immediately after the ink was dry to hash out a bilateral security agreement with some hard numbers on dollar figures and troop counts.

  The Americans and Karzai battled back and forth over the next two years, as U.S. military estimates of how many troops they would need after 2014 rose and fell. There were marathon diplomatic sessions, with Secretary of State John K
erry trying to wrangle Karzai to an agreement. The Afghan government struggled through the negotiations, partly because this was the first time it had been called upon to negotiate an agreement of this magnitude. Each night after the negotiations, the Afghan team would brief Karzai in the palace, to get his agreement on every phrase. “It was difficult because we didn’t have the proper expertise,” one of the main Afghan negotiators told me. “The United States has signed hundreds of such agreements around the world. We didn’t want to be criticized that what we did was not in the interests of Afghanistan.”

  One of the main sticking points was whether the American troops who stayed after 2014 could be prosecuted for crimes in Afghan courts. The issue was a firm red line for the U.S. government. When the Iraqis had refused to give American troops immunity, the Obama administration had pulled all of them out. Karzai also held out on his adamant belief that American troops couldn’t enter Afghan homes, something the United States wasn’t willing to concede. But Karzai eventually agreed, heading into his last year in office, that the decision should ultimately be made by the Afghan people. The plan called for a multibillion-dollar commitment and would allow for some ten thousand troops for the decade after 2014. Any American military operations would respect Afghan sovereignty and be a complement to Afghan forces. Karzai would hold a loya jirga, the same type of council that had chosen him a dozen years earlier to lead Afghanistan, and let the three thousand delegates vote on the future of the American partnership.

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  Qayum Karzai stepped out of his black Land Cruiser in the driveway of his brother Mahmood’s home in Sherpur. He entered through the front door and made his way downstairs, to where a crowd of a few dozen people had convened in a hall draped in red carpets. Iridescent pillows on the floor framed the seating area in a giant rectangle. The light fixtures were shaped like flowers. The walls were polished stone. Tribesmen from Pashtun provinces had come to hear Qayum discuss the future of Afghanistan, now that he was running for president. Seated cross-legged at one end of the room, Qayum addressed the men in Pashto. There was just one big question in this late winter of the Karzai reign, which Qayum posed to the men as he started his talk: What would happen to Afghanistan after the American troops left?

  One of the bearded men called out that if Afghan soldiers could get enough weapons, they’d be fine.

  “I don’t think this will help,” Qayum told them. In the past, the Afghan army had been powerful, but civil strife had still torn it apart. “Until our leaders are able to compromise on major national issues, it is not possible for us to become powerful.”

  Qayum Karzai had positioned himself against his younger brother’s record. With the election coming up in 2014, and President Karzai’s term soon to expire, speculation in Kabul was running wild about who would take over for the man everyone had become so accustomed to seeing in the palace. There were people willing to bet vast sums that President Karzai would finagle the rules, change the constitution, and install himself as leader for life and self-proclaimed father of the nation. Others were convinced that he’d just rubber-stamp one of his brothers as successor and start a Karzai dynasty. But from early on in Qayum’s campaign, Hamid offered no help. “From day one he was against his brother,” one of President Karzai’s ministers told me. “He never supported him.” Qayum had already told me how strongly he disliked his brother’s politics, particularly his fisticuffs with the United States. Qayum felt the United States should not be judged on grievances alone; the sacrifices should also be acknowledged. He couldn’t understand why his brother wasn’t signing the security agreement. Hamid knew Afghanistan needed the United States, Qayum believed, so why was he being so stubborn? The one Karzai he disagreed with most was the president. “Families are not like marbles,” he said. “We don’t all roll the same way.”

  Qayum saw himself as a wise, thoughtful listener, comfortable in both Afghanistan and the West, knowledgeable about Afghan history, attuned to the traditions of negotiation and compromise. “When Hamid Karzai was facing a problem, he would always ask Qayum’s advice,” Shahzada Massoud, who’d known the family since their exile days, told me.

  Most of Qayum’s adult life had been spent in the United States. He’d made frequent visits to Afghanistan during the past decade—and even won a seat in parliament—but most of his time was devoted to running his restaurants in Baltimore. He was one of the city’s prominent restaurateurs. Besides the Helmand, he and his wife had opened a Spanish tapas spot, Tapas Teatro, and a French restaurant called B Bistro. He ran the Fig Leaf Farm to supply organic produce to his restaurants. In Kandahar, he’d built up his business interests as well, although in a more discreet way than Mahmood. He owned the Hewad radio station and a television station of the same name, which had both received advertising paid by the U.S. government over the years. For the U.S. military commanders in Kandahar, he was a source of counsel on Afghan history and customs and how to handle tribal affairs without provoking outrage or violence. The role he preferred was that of a quiet, behind-the-scenes adviser. Whereas his brother in the palace was a hotheaded political improviser, he was the sober, rational, business-minded Karzai. In a time of war, he appealed for civility. “Are we going to support a Popalzai, a Tajik, a Pashtun? Or are we going there like someone preparing to pray to God, with all honesty, with a clean mind, with a mind that I am voting for the benefit of my family, village, district, province, and for the whole country?” he said at a campaign event. “If this is not the condition, then our votes will be lost and it will change nothing.”

  His discretion became a liability to his candidacy. Qayum was not well known, and his time abroad had made him unfamiliar to many Afghans. He was a rather dull campaigner and didn’t have the charisma or following of his other brothers. His time as a parliament member—he’d been elected in 2005 to represent Kandahar—had been cut short after three years because of health troubles and sporadic attendance. Some of his critics questioned his Islamic credentials by pointing out that you could order pork and alcohol in his restaurants in Baltimore.

  Qayum admitted that he wasn’t a good politician. There were other men running for president who offered more moderate views than President Karzai, and they were more famous. The most prominent candidates—Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister, and Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister—planned to run independently. Even within his family, Qayum wasn’t a very popular candidate. Ahmed Wali, before he died, had told an American general that Qayum was “too old” to run. (He was now sixty-six.) President Karzai led people to believe he preferred his foreign minister, Zalmai Rassoul.

  The war had driven the Karzais apart in lots of ways—in their businesses and relationships, in their politics. The siblings disagreed on the conduct of American troops, on how to negotiate with the Taliban, on how to manage the nation’s economy and their personal finances. Mahmood, always brash and outspoken, seemed to revel in slamming the president. He felt Hamid knew nothing about economics and failed to foster the private sector. Mahmood claimed he had no relationship with Hamid anymore. “We’re not even talking right now,” he told me. “I don’t care about him anymore. He’s a typical Middle Eastern politician.”

  He felt Hamid had thrown up ridiculous and unnecessary obstacles for the economy. Mahmood had given Hamid a book about the Yoshida doctrine, named for Japan’s post–World War II prime minister Shigeru Yoshida, who prized economic development over military spending. But he felt the president created no incentives for the private sector. He could not understand President Karzai’s decision in 2010 to add Thursday, as a government day off, to the Muslim holiday of Friday, creating a midweek weekend out of whack with the other countries of the region and the West. He felt there needed to be higher tariffs on Pakistani goods to help the competitiveness of Afghan businesses. He believed it was “outrageous” and a “suicide mission” that President Karzai had made overtures to China to replace the United States as its main benefactor. Mahmood told the Afg
han station Tolo News that he regretted having supported his brother’s second-term campaign. “The guy’s a dictator. He’s a son of a bitch. For forty-nine years he’s done nothing for this country,” he told me. “To change our country, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We can copy Dubai. We can copy Singapore. This is capitalism. I started something with four million dollars. Now everyone is making money. Under the Taliban, this was a hell on earth. Our women were treated like animals. I wanted a South Korea. He wanted another Pakistan.”

  Qayum’s family back in Baltimore were wary about him running for president and taking on all the risks it entailed. His wife, Patricia, had lived with Qayum’s relatives in Baltimore for long stretches over the years. She had grown particularly fond of his father, Abdul Ahad, who had doted on his grandchildren. She had picked up enough Pashto over the years to communicate and always tried to be respectful of Afghan customs. “My family would say, ‘Why do you always wear long-sleeve blouses, this is our country? And why don’t you have bacon in the refrigerator? Why do you do this?’ I would just say, ‘Because I honor him so much, and what he’s had to give up in life.’ ” She had adored Hamid as a younger man, but that wore away over years of listening to him lambast America and ignore the sacrifices of the soldiers. “It’s very hurtful,” she said. “I know there have been a lot of innocent Afghans that have been killed, but when you know how many American soldiers have lost their lives, their limbs, their livelihoods, everything, for Afghanistan. And for him to…” She trailed off. “I think he has to be more mindful of what he says and how he says it. I know he means to direct it at the government, but unfortunately, if I had a brother or a son or a daughter who had lost a life or limbs there, I would take it personally. Just because I know him as being such a kind and gentle person…I almost wonder if what he’s saying [are] really his words.”