THE SATURDAY PROFILE: He blames the tragedy of Afghanistan on foreign interference and tribalism, two factors that have underpinned his elevation this week as president. Lara Marlowe profiles Hamid Karzai.
Hamid Karzai's swearing-in as President of Afghanistan on June 19th before the 1,600 delegates of the Loya Jirga (grand assembly) was little short of miraculous. The deadline set at the December 2001 Bonn conference, where Mr Karzai was named interim Prime Minister, was respected despite infighting between ethnic Tajiks and Pashtuns and continuing anarchy in much of the country.
Six months after he was appointed, Mr Karzai has no functioning police force or army. He relies totally on 5,000 international peacekeepers in Kabul. Despite his repeated pleas, the peace-keepers have not moved into the rest of the country. As a result, his authority stops at the capital's city limits.
A strong smell of fossil fuel hung over the Loya Jirga proceedings. On May 30th, Mr Karzai and the presidents of Turkmenistan and Pakistan signed an agreement to build a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. Mr Karzai's Oil Minister said there was a good chance the US company UNOCAL (formerly Union Oil Company of California) would obtain the contract to exploit the pipeline.
Mr Karzai, it just so happens, was a salaried consultant to UNOCAL in 1996 and 1997, when he drew up a feasibility study of the Afghan pipeline. During that time, he became friends with another UNOCAL consultant, Mr Zalmay Khalilzad.
Today, Mr Khalilzad is US special envoy to Afghanistan, widely known as "Bush's Afghan". Mr Khalilzad was present for the 10 days of the Loya Jirga, constantly cajoling delegates and talking on his mobile phone. "Without us, this Loya Jirga would not have taken place," he said. Many Afghans claim Mr Khalilzad, not Mr Karzai, is the real ruler of Afghanistan.
Endowed with a government and parliament, Mr Karzai now has 18 months to prepare Afghanistan for a general election at the end of 2003. His enemies claim he's an American stooge. It says a lot about the depth of concern for Afghanistan that Mr Karzai's sartorial elegance has attracted far more attention than his ties with the US oil lobby. Not to mention rumours of links with US and British intelligence, which go back to the mid-1980s, when he based himself in Pakistan to send money and weapons to the mujahideen fighting the Russians.
When Mr Karzai was President Bush's guest of honour at his State of the Union address last winter, Mr Tom Ford, top designer at Gucci, declared the Afghan leader "the most chic man in the world". Boutiques in New York and Washington scrambled to obtain astrakhan fur hats and tribal robes, which quickly sold out. Mr Karzai had replaced Ahmed Shah Massoud, assassinated in September 2001, as the West's new Afghan poster hero, the friendly ally from central casting.
Perhaps it is unfair to dismiss Mr Karzai as a mere fashion plate. He has made no major blunders in six months in power. He must try to keep the militia leaders who laid waste to Afghanistan for 23 years from fighting each other, and is constantly on the lookout for remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Squabbles during the Loya Jirga showed how difficult it will be to unite Afghanistan. The assembly ran two days longer than expected because Tajiks and Pashtuns could not agree on a fair distribution of seats in the parliament.
Hamid Karzai obtained a master's degree in international relations at the University of Simla in India in 1982. During his studies there, he came to admire the pacifist father of Indian independence, Mahatma Gandhi. Mr Karzai blames the tragedy of Afghanistan on two things: foreign intervention and tribalism.
But now that he is in power, Mr Karzai, a Pashtun, is indebted to both. Without Washington, he would not be in office. Pashtuns, about 40 per cent of the population, are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. The Taliban were mostly Pashtuns, and the US needed a Pashtun to woo supporters after the Taliban were driven from power.
Despite his frequent condemnations of "warlordism", Mr Karzai appointed the Uzbek leader and accused war criminal Mr Abdul Rashid Dostom as deputy Defence Minister. The ranks of the assembly which elected Mr Karzai were filled with warriors. "This Loya Jirga could have strengthened civil society," Mr Sami Zarifi of Human Rights Watch complained to Le Monde. "But instead, it has legitimised the warlords." Mr Bush's envoy, Mr Khalilzad, justified their presence, and the appointment of three militia leaders as vice-presidents. "Armed factions are part of life in Afghanistan. Their inclusion is not necessarily negative. It indicates their desire to resolve problems politically and reflects their desire to be part of the process." Mr Karzai, at least, has the merit of having no blood on his hands. "I am not a killer," he says.
He was born in Kandahar on December 24th, 1957, and went to Habibia high school in Kabul. As a child, he spent holidays in his family's home village of Kars. Five of his brothers emigrated to the US and Canada, where one is a university professor and the others run a chain of Afghan restaurants.
Mr Karzai served as deputy foreign minister in the mujahideen government that drove the Russians out of Kabul. He became disillusioned with them and supported the Taliban when they took over in 1994. Two years later, he turned down a Taliban offer to become the regime's representative at the UN, joining UNOCAL instead. In 1998, he moved to Quetta, Pakistan, and began plotting against the Taliban. His father, Mr Abdul Ahmad, a former senator and the chief of the Popolzai tribe, was assassinated by gunmen on a motorbike - probably dispatched by the Taliban - as he walked home from evening prayers in Quetta in 1999. Mr Karzai led a funeral procession of 300 to bury his father in Kandahar. No one touched them. He became leader of his tribe and several times travelled to the US to rally opposition to the Taliban, testifying before a Senate committee in 2000.
He joined the Rome Group of supporters of King Zaher Shah, who is a distant cousin. After a long attachment with a female American journalist, who worked in Afghanistan, Mr Karzai married an Afghan doctor named Zinat in 1998. He has no children.
Many Pashtuns wanted the 87-year-old king to assume power when he returned to Afghanistan this year, after 29 years in exile. Mr Karzai handled the crisis skilfully, praising the king and giving him the title of "Baba" or "father of the nation". Neighbouring Iran, for one, would not have accepted the return of a shah.
Last October, Mr Karzai sneaked into Mullah Omar's home province of Uruzgan with a group of fighters to destabilise the Taliban there. Further to the east on a similar mission, his friend Mr Abdul Haq was captured by the Taliban and hanged. The same fate could easily have befallen Mr Karzai. His most heroic episode is shrouded in ambiguity. The US air force provided air support for whatever combat Mr Karzai directed, but it is not clear to what extent he fought, and to what extent he negotiated or bought off the men who murdered his father. There is a lingering suspicion that he let Mullah Omar escape. The US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, said Mr Karzai was rescued by a US helicopter and flown to Pakistan - a story denied by Mr Karzai. Whether true or not, there will doubtless be other opportunities for the US to rescue Hamid Karzai.