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The Lone Man Without a Gun
HAMID KARZAI is seeking to bring order to a chaotic country—by forsaking the use of force
By TIM MCGIRK

His grip on power is shaky, his nation could descend into civil war at any time, and his own life may be in danger. But Hamid Karzai has already secured a bright spot in Afghanistan's history for attempting what no one has before: trying to tame perhaps the world's most lawless land not through force but with charm, diplomacy and sheer courage.

Karzai, 44, is Afghanistan's lone man without a gun. When he rode a motorcycle into southern Afghanistan from Quetta, Pakistan, last November to launch his uprising against the Taliban, he was unarmed and had only his credential as a tribal chief. Many friends told Karzai his plan was suicidal, that he might as well save the gas money and drive his bike straight into a brick wall. Back then, the Taliban seemed rock-solid. Poundings by U.S. warplanes had failed to loosen the warrior-clerics' grasp on most of the country. Taliban spies roamed every village and town, shooting suspected traitors or hanging them from lamp posts. Afghans were terrified of helping anyone who defied the Taliban. But the Americans weren't, and Karzai, armed with a satellite phone and a handy Pentagon telephone number, didn't hesitate to summon U.S. air support on at least one occasion when the Taliban laid an ambush for him.

But that does not in any way diminish Karzai's own real bravery. When he started showing up in the mountain villages of Oruzgan province with no weapon on him, preaching the collapse of the Taliban in their very stronghold, the tribal elders listened, even though they were probably less dazzled by his convictions than his courage. Afghans admire the valorous—and the victorious. Once the tide turned, the chief Taliban mullahs in Kandahar chose to negotiate their surrender with Karzai. They thought, rightly so, that he was fairer and more honest than the other U.S.-backed warlords stalking outside the city. Now, as Afghanistan's interim leader, Karzai's job is to change Afghanistan's culture of violence and lay the foundation to a lasting national government.

Karzai has been living dangerously for a long time. In 1997, he became chieftain of the aristocratic Popolzai tribe when his father, a respected Afghan parliamentarian, was shot dead in Quetta by the Taliban. Despite warnings that the Taliban were also gunning for him there, Karzai never varied his routine, taking three-hour walks around the desert city in his long, loping stride. Nor did he let up on the Taliban. Advisers say that shortly before Sept. 11, irate Pakistani officials were on the verge of expelling Karzai from his exile home in Quetta because of his verbal attacks on the mullahs.

Karzai is the only Afghan leader with a vision for his country beyond personal greed and tribal ambitions. During his Indian college years in the 1970s, he became an avid reader of Mohandas Gandhi's writings, and he says he doesn't see why change through nonviolence can't happen in a country rife with warlords and bandits. Not all disputes need to be settled by the gun, he says. This is how he describes the Afghan political process: "We talk, I get mad at them, they get mad at me, we joke a little and then, finally, we agree," he says. "That's the Afghan way." It's also the Afghan way to come out shooting, and his advisers privately confess to worries that their boss might fall to an assassin's bullet. Security around the palace is woeful, and a recent bomb blast narrowly missed the Defense Minister. In February, the Aviation Minister was murdered; three men, including the deputy intelligence chief, have been arrested for the crime.

Karzai may have set a new standard for Afghan chic in his stylish collarless shirts, silk robes and lamb's wool hats, but he is no snob. In his free moments, Karzai has slipped out of his palace and strolled through Kabul, talking with tea sellers, beggars and devotees at the river mosque. Twice now, he hitched rides back to the palace with strangers. One driver kept asking him: "Are you really Karzai? Our other rulers came and went as invisible as thieves." If Karzai survives, that may never be the Afghan way again.

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