Lonely at the Top

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How do you run a country just emerging from a brutal civil war and still teeming with armed warlords? Especially if you don't have a military of your own? For Hamid Karzai, the answer sometimes is just to take care of the little things. On a recent afternoon, Afghanistan's interim leader decides to take the pulse of the capital, Kabul, on foot. Before setting out, he removes his trademark green-striped Uzbek robe and puts on a less flashy overcoat. Accompanied by a pair of aides but no bodyguards, he strolls through the palace gates to check out the city. He stops at a shop selling TV dishes, which had been banned by the fundamentalist Islamic former rulers, the Taliban, and exchanges friendly banter with a boy in the park. And then, like pretty much everyone else in Kabul, the leader of Afghanistan is besieged by beggars. An aggressive woman repeatedly demands "Baksheesh!" until Karzai finally throws up his hands, saying, "I don't have any money." A local man steps in to help and whisks Karzai back to the safety of his palace in a mud-splashed Mitsubishi Pajero.

These are trying times for Afghanistan's leader. As the dust settles from America's rout of the Taliban, the nation is barely holding together. Its implacable problems, forgotten in the brief moment of triumph, are now front and center. Warlords are trying to carve up the country. Opium is once again the No. 1 crop. And scheming neighbors are attempting to put their own guys in power in Kabul. The strain on Karzai is evident during the several days that I spend with him. The promise of foreign aid helps keep the peace, as do the American bombing raids aimed at some of his enemies. But Karzai, in spite of his outward optimism, must surely wonder whether the long knives are out for him.

Shakespeare would envy the complexity of the scene as Afghanistan's leaders gather to bury a colleague, Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Abdul Rahman, who was murdered at the Kabul airport two weeks ago. Though Karzai presides, it is apparent that while he possesses the ceremonial trappings of his office--a presidential guard and an off-tune military band--the real power lies elsewhere. Defense Minister Mohammed Qasim Fahim and Interior Minister Younus Qanooni both arrive for memorial prayers with a retinue of armed warriors. The assorted dignitaries remove their shoes to enter the local mosque. Karzai later notes with black humor that a Cabinet member's shoes were stolen. It's a tough crowd.

As the procession advances to the Pious Martyr's Cemetery, an ancient necropolis sloping into a lake, the assembled ministers appear dutifully mournful. Beside the open grave, Karzai pledges that Rahman's murder won't go unpunished. It's a charged moment: many of the funeral-goers were openly hostile toward Rahman. Some believe that they should be the rulers of Afghanistan and that Karzai stands in their path. When it's time to leave, Karzai strides briskly out among the tombstones. Hustling along behind him, with their bayonets and greatcoats, the guards resemble a 19th century army retreating through the cemetery's twilight gloom.