Big shakeup in Afganistan coming
The United States is urging Afghan President Hamid Karzai to rein in provincial warlords who are hijacking hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue needed by his government, and has not ruled out U.S. military assistance in the event of a showdown.
A showdown of sorts could come at this week's meeting. Karzai has summoned the provincial governors and warlords to Kabul to demand that they pass revenue they collect directly to the central bank, with disbursement back to the provinces to come later.
On Monday, the Western diplomat was blunt.
"If the governors refuse to cooperate peacefully, then President Karzai needs to be ready to take some action," he said. Specifically, he said Karzai should fire any governors or army commanders who failed to comply.
This is Karzai's last change to take control of the country, if he can't get most of the regional warlords to at least partially toe the line the central government will lose what little authority it has and is liable to collapse. Basicly the warlords are hoarding all the tax money (in addition to all the illegal drug trade money), so the only money the central government is getting is international donations, which won't support any serious reconstruction.
The bit about firing is rather funny, but I'm sure everybody involved knows that firing should be taken very litteraly. The only reason his threats have any force at all is because the US military is threatening to back them up, the Afgan state army is a joke.
What I expect to happen is that one or two of the warlords will be very visably removed from power, and the rest will grudingly hand over a small portion of what they are supposed to.
Jay
