Tom Friedman complains that Afghan President Hamid Karzai's public gestures indicate he doesn't really like the United States very much, and so he won't do anything to reduce corruption:
When Karzai believes that the way to punish America for snubbing him is by inviting Iran's president to Kabul — who delivered a virulently anti-U.S. speech from inside the presidential palace — you have to pay close attention to that. It means Karzai must think that anti-Americanism plays well on the streets of Afghanistan and that by dabbling in it himself — as he did during his presidential campaign — he will strengthen himself politically. That is not a good sign.
In terms of Karzai's willingness to curtail corruption, it's an irrelevant sign. Ultimately the U.S. goal in Afghanistan is to leave behind a stable Afghan government. If distancing himself from the U.S. publicly allows Karzai to gain more popular support and legitimacy for his government, then it's in the U.S. interest for him to do that, regardless of whether it hurts our feelings. If anti-Americanism didn't "play well" on the streets of Afghanistan in some sense, there wouldn't be an insurgency in the first place.
I share Friedman's skepticism about Karzai's desire and ability to reform the Afghan government given his past record, but this is ultimately not a very persuasive argument or metric:
In the Middle East, what leaders tell you in private in English is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public in their own language.
Afghanistan is not in the Middle East. This isn't meant to be a petty geographic correction: This statement suggests Friedman is superimposing preset conclusions about Afghan politics based on observations about another part of the world.
-- A. Serwer
