Hamid Karzai
Hamid Karzai is an Afghan politician who served as the seventh president of Afghanistan from 2002 to 2014, including as the first president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from 2004 to 2014. He also served as chairman of the Afghan Interim Administration from 2001 to 2002.
Born in Kandahar, Karzai graduated from Habibia High School in Kabul and later received a master's degree from Himachal Pradesh University, Summerhill, Shimla, India, in the 1980s. He moved to Pakistan where he was active as a fundraiser for the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War and its aftermath. He briefly served as Deputy Foreign Minister in the Islamic State of Afghanistan government. In July 1999, Karzai's father was assassinated and Karzai succeeded him as head of the Popalzai tribe. In October 2001 the United States invasion of Afghanistan began and Karzai led the Pashtun tribes in and around Kandahar in an uprising against the Taliban; he became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001. During the December 2001 International Conference on Afghanistan in Germany, Karzai was selected by prominent Afghan political figures to serve a six-month term as chairman of the Interim Administration.
He was then chosen for a two-year term as interim president during the 2002 loya jirga that was held in Kabul, Afghanistan. After the 2004 presidential election, Karzai was declared the winner and became President of Afghanistan. He won a second five-year term in the 2009 presidential election; this term ended in September 2014, and he was succeeded by Ashraf Ghani.
During his presidency, Karzai was known in the international community for being an alliance builder between Afghanistan's multi-ethnic communities. He also strengthened Afghanistan–Pakistan relations. In later years, his relationship with NATO and the United States became increasingly strained. Karzai's stance on extremism and terrorism was criticized; he described the Taliban as his brothers, and warned that the heavy-handed counterinsurgency in Afghanistan would only revive the Taliban insurgency against the former Afghan government, urging the US to instead focus on subduing Pakistan's support for the Taliban leadership, but the US largely ignored his requests. Karzai was also accused of corruption. After the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021, Karzai stated the Taliban did not capture the city by force, but rather were invited by him in order to prevent chaos. He said that in order to gain international recognition, the new Taliban government needed internal legitimacy, which could be achieved through a general election or loya jirga.
Early life and beginning of political career
Karzai was born on 24 December 1957 in the Karz area of Kandahar City in southern Afghanistan. Hamid belongs to the Popalzai tribe of Durrani Pashtuns and was the local chief of the tribe in Kandahar Province. His father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, served as the Deputy Speaker of the Afghan Parliament during the 1960s. His grandfather, Khair Mohammad Khan, had fought in the 1919 Third Anglo-Afghan War and was the Deputy Speaker of the Senate. The Karzai family were monarchists and remained strong supporters of Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan. His uncle, Habibullah Karzai, served as the Afghan representative at the UN and is said to have accompanied King Zahir to the United States in the early 1960s for a special meeting with U.S. President John F. Kennedy.Hamid Karzai attended Mahmood Hotaki Primary School in Kandahar and Sayed Jamaluddin Afghani School in Kabul. He graduated from Habibia High School in Kabul in 1976. After graduating, he went to India as an exchange student in 1976, and studied for a master's degree in international relations and political science at Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla, obtaining his degree in 1983. Karzai then moved to Pakistan and worked as a fundraiser for the anti-communist Afghan rebels during their 1980s uprising against the rule of Soviet-backed Afghan Mohammad Najibullah.
Hamid Karzai returned to Afghanistan in early October 1988, late in the war, to assist in the rebel victory in Tarinkot. He assisted in mobilizing the Popalzai and the other Durrani tribes and helped to drive Najibullah's regime from the city. Karzai also helped negotiate the defection of five hundred of Najibullah's soldiers. When Najibullah's pro-Soviet government collapsed in 1992, the Peshawar Accords agreed upon by the Afghan political parties established the Islamic State of Afghanistan and appointed an interim government to be followed by general elections. Karzai accompanied the first mujahideen leaders into Kabul after President Najibullah stepped down in 1992. He served as Deputy Foreign Minister in the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani. Karzai was arrested, however, by Mohammad Fahim on charges of spying for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in what Karzai claimed was an effort to negotiate between Hekmatyar's forces and Rabbani's government. Karzai fled from Kabul in a vehicle provided by Hekmatyar and driven by Gul Rahman.
When the Taliban emerged in the mid-1990s, Karzai initially recognized them as the legitimate government because he thought that they would stop the violence and corruption in the country. He was requested by the Taliban to serve as their ambassador, but refused, telling friends that he felt Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence was wrongly using them. Karzai then wanted to represent the Taliban government for the UN, but the Taliban leader did not trust Karzai due to him having many links with westerners. Karzai lived in the Pakistani city of Quetta among many other Afghan refugees, where he worked to reinstate former Afghan king Zahir Shah, meeting the king in Italy several times. He also visited Western embassies several times, talking with UN diplomat Norbert Holl, and attempted to gain American support for "modern, educated Afghans" to weaken the Taliban's views. Karzai's father was reportedly annoyed with him for not making clear-cut choices and wanting to be friends with everyone.
In July 1999, Karzai's father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was shot dead early in the morning while returning home from a mosque in Quetta. Reports suggest that the Taliban carried out the assassination. Following this incident, Karzai took over as khan of the tribe and decided to work closely with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, which was led by Ahmad Shah Massoud.
In 2000 and 2001, he travelled to Europe and the United States to help gather support for the anti-Taliban movement. "Massoud and Karzai warned the United States that the Taliban were connected with al Qaeda and that there was a plot for an imminent attack on the United States, but their warnings went unheeded. On September 9, 2001, two days before the September 11 attacks in the US, Massoud was assassinated by al Qaeda agents in a suicide bombing." As the U.S. Armed Forces were preparing for a confrontation with the Taliban in September 2001, Karzai began urging NATO states to purge his country of al-Qaeda. He said in a BBC interview, "These Arabs, together with their foreign supporters and the Taliban, destroyed miles and miles of homes and orchards and vineyards ... They have killed Afghans. They have trained their guns on Afghan lives ... We want them out."
President and chairman of a transitional administration
Karzai had been a US CIA contact, and was well regarded by the CIA. After the 7 October 2001 launch of Operation Enduring Freedom, the United Front worked with teams of U.S. special forces and together they overthrew the Taliban regime and mustered support for a new government in Afghanistan. Karzai and his group were in Quetta, where they began a covert operation. Later, many would claim that at this moment the US decided that Karzai should be the next leader of Afghanistan. Before entering Afghanistan, he warned his fighters:Karzai gathered several hundred fighters from his tribe, but were attacked by the Taliban. Karzai barely survived, and used his contacts with the CIA to call for an airlift. On 4 November 2001, American special operation forces flew Karzai out of Afghanistan for protection. On 5 December 2001, Hamid Karzai and his group of fighters survived a friendly fire missile attack by U.S. Air Force pilots in southern Afghanistan. The group suffered injuries and was treated in the United States; Karzai received injuries to his facial nerves, as can sometimes be noticed during his speeches.
In December 2001, political leaders gathered in Germany to agree on new leadership structures. Under 5 December Bonn Agreement, they formed an Interim Administration and named Karzai Chairman of a 29-member governing committee. He was sworn in as the leader on 22 December. The loya jirga of 13 June 2002 appointed Karzai as Interim President of the new position as President of the Afghan Transitional Administration. Former members of the Northern Alliance remained extremely influential, most notably Vice President Mohammed Fahim, who also served as the Defense Minister.
Karzai re-enacted the original coronation of Ahmad Shah Durrani at the shrine of Sher-i-Surkh outside Kandahar, where he had leaders of various Afghan tribes, including a descendant of the religious leader who originally selected Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1747, as key players in this event. Further evidence that Karzai views himself fulfilling a Durrani monarch's role arises from statements furnished by close allies within his government. His late brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, made statements to a similar effect.
As part of his efforts to unite Afghanistan's ethnicities, Karzai favored an Afghan dress that combines traditional design features from the various ethnics – Pashtun-style long shirt and loose trousers, an outer robe popular among the Tajiks and Uzbeks, and most distinctively a karakul hat worn by highlanders from the valley of Panjshir. In 2002 designer Tom Ford, who worked at the time for Gucci, was quoted calling Karzai "the most chic man in the world".
After Karzai was installed into power, his actual authority outside the capital city of Kabul was said to be so limited that he was often derided as the "Mayor of Kabul". The situation was particularly delicate since Karzai and his administration have not been equipped either financially or politically to influence reforms outside of the region around Kabul. Other areas, particularly the more remote ones, have historically been under the influence of various local leaders. Karzai has been, to varying degrees of success, attempting to negotiate and form amicable alliances with them for the benefit of Afghanistan as a whole, instead of aggressively fighting them and risking an uprising.
In 2004, he rejected an international proposal to end poppy production in Afghanistan through aerial spraying of chemical herbicides, fearing that it would harm the economic situation of his countrymen. Moreover, Karzai's younger brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai – who partially helped finance Karzai's presidential campaign – was rumored to be involved in narcotic deals. James Risen of The New York Times and others stated that Ahmed Wali Karzai may have been involved in the Afghan opium and heroin trade. This was denied by Karzai, who called the charges political propaganda and stated he was a "victim of vicious politics".