An Acceptable Dictator
Saturday, October 4th, 2008I adore the term acceptable dictator. Every time I hear it, or the term friendly dictator, it’s as if the voice of Henry Kissinger is saying it in my head – who knows a thing or two about friendly dictators. Then again, the fact that that happens is somewhat creepy.
But I’m jumping the gun. First, a little back story…
Though little known, or reported, Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai, after his falling out with the Taliban, spent much of his energies on the reinstatement of Zahir Shah while in self imposed exile in Pakistan. This, of course, is the very same man that was later singled out to become the legitimate face of ‘Afghan democracy’ – which should be rather telling regarding Karzai’s personal ambitions given the fact that he went from promoting the return of a Monarch to the West’s champion of democratic freedom almost overnight.
Since becoming the President of Afghanistan, Karzai has been labeled the Mayor of Kabul, primarily because the influence of his government extends little further than its outskirts without the existence of foreign occupational forces which, in truth, ensure the continued existence of Afghanistan’s fledgling shake-and-bake democracy.
But with Karzai has come the reality that the West could do better, that a far more pliable leader would be more advantageous to Western objectives – even if that leader were not a democratic one, an assertion recently made by Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British Ambassador. From Elaine Sciolino in today’s New York Times…
“A coded French diplomatic cable leaked to a French newspaper quotes the British ambassador in Afghanistan as predicting that the NATO-led military campaign against the Taliban will fail. That was not all. The best solution for the country, the ambassador said, would be installing an “acceptable dictator,” according to the newspaper.
“The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust,” the British envoy, Sherard Cowper-Coles, was quoted as saying by the author of the cable, François Fitou, the French deputy ambassador to Kabul.
The two-page cable — which was sent to the Élysée Palace and the French Foreign Ministry on Sept. 2, and was leaked to the investigative and satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, which printed excerpts in its Wednesday issue — said that the NATO-led military presence was making it harder to stabilize the country.
“The presence of the coalition, in particular its military presence, is part of the problem, not part of its solution,” Sir Sherard was quoted as saying. “Foreign forces are the lifeline of a regime that would rapidly collapse without them. As such, they slow down and complicate a possible emergence from the crisis.”
Within 5 to 10 years, the only “realistic” way to unite Afghanistan would be for it to be “governed by an acceptable dictator,” the cable said, adding, “We should think of preparing our public opinion” for such an outcome.”
There’s Kissinger’s voice in my head again.

