The State of Afghanistan

It has been a rough few weeks for Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai. Violence in his insurgency-wracked nation reached new levels on Aug. 18 when the Taliban attacked French troops belonging to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) just 30 miles (50 km) from the capital Kabul; 10 Frenchmen died and another 21 were wounded. The next day, militants massed against one of the biggest U.S. bases in the country, launching a coordinated attack that included six suicide bombers. Just a week earlier, militants had killed three foreign aid workers and their Afghan driver, prompting international aid missions to reconsider how, and even if, they should be delivering assistance to Afghan civilians in the face of a militant surge bent on forcing all foreigners out of the country. TIME's Aryn Baker took advantage of a lull in the fighting to sit down with Karzai, 50, in the garden of his fortified palace in Kabul to discuss the violence, the Aug. 18 resignation of Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, and widespread accusations of corruption in the Afghan government that are driving a wedge between the people and their leader, just when unity is most needed. Excerpts from their two-hour conversation:

TIME: When we last met two years ago, Kabul's first major suicide bomb went off during our interview. Since then the militants have grown ever stronger. There have been many devastating attacks, plus an attempt on your life.
The casualties will only get worse, I fear. And did you see what's happening in Pakistan? Why would someone go and blow himself up in a hospital? Who are they, what are they? It cannot be justified. You can fight people anywhere, anyplace, but you don't kill people in a hospital. It's crazy.

So how do you combat a movement that has only annihilation as its goal?
In order to fix terrorism at large, we need to remedy the wrongs of the past 30 years. Remedy means to undo. The world pushed us to fight the Soviets. And those who did it walked away and left all the mess spread around. September 11 is a consequence of this. The bombing in Peshawar today is a consequence. The bombing in Algeria today is a consequence. Afghanistan was once a great place in perfect harmony with the rest of the world. Families sent their girls to university, wearing whatever style they wanted. And that family lived in perfect harmony with another family who was conservative and traditional. Both lived together and socialized.
But in the years of fighting against the Soviets, radicalism was the main thing. Someone like me would be called half a Muslim, because we were not radical. The more radical you became the more money you were given. Radicalism became not only an ideological tool against the Soviets but a way forward economically. The more radical you presented yourself, the more money the West gave you.

It wasn't just the West; it was Saudi Arabia, Pakistan.
Everybody together I call the West, because they were led by the West. The moderates were undermined. Afghan history and nationalism were called atheism. The more you spoke of radicalism, the better you were treated. That's what we are paying for now.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, your longtime foe, stepped down yesterday. What does this mean for Afghanistan?
Arrivals and departures don't matter much — unless we correct the institutions, unless we change the mind-sets that follow an old policy. For example, if Pakistan is using radicalism as a tool of policy for strategic depth in Afghanistan, well, I wish to tell them it won't work. The best strategic depth in Afghanistan is friendship, cooperation. Afghanistan is willing to build that kind of relationship: cooperation, not weaponry, not sanctuary, not undermining, not seeking a puppet state. That will not happen, period.

You have accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency of supporting terrorism in Afghanistan, particularly in the case of the recent Indian embassy bombing in Kabul. Do you think the new civilian government in Pakistan can rein in the ISI?
[Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf] Gilani is a good man. He has the right intentions. I hope he gets the tools of control. Today, the army chief of Pakistan was in Afghanistan, at Bagram air-force base. I called [General Ashfaq] Kayani on the telephone to welcome him to my country, and to tell him that Afghanistan cannot achieve peace or prosperity without friendly relations with Pakistan. I hope he recognizes that what they are doing [in terms of supporting militancy in Afghanistan] is causing immense damage to Pakistan itself.

What will it take for this to happen?
A proper analysis of the Pakistani national interest. A proper analysis of the course to be followed into the future. A different thinking about life itself. How do I want to live with my neighbor? Do I want to live a life undermining it or pushing it around, or do I want a neighbor who is prosperous and good and with whom I can work well? Afghanistan wants that life. And Pakistan will benefit from that life, too.
Pakistan has to recognize that Afghanistan has been in this part of the world for a long, long time. It's a good, old, sage man. It will not go away. Empires have tried and failed to conquer this place. And Afghanistan will guard its independence and sovereignty and its right to a relationship with others very jealously. We will have relations with India. We will have relations with Iran, with China, with America, with Russia, too. Strategic ones, strong ones, deep ones. These are relationships that will not be used against our neighbors. Not against Pakistan, not against Iran. We are not shadowy.

Recently there has been a spate of incidents of ISAF troops causing civilian casualties. The Afghan Senate is trying to bring foreign forces under Afghan law so they can be tried for civilian casualties. Is that what you want?
Afghanistan is grateful to our allies for having brought us liberation from terrorists, al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Their taxpayer money is being spent here in Afghanistan. It is money that the American and European people have worked hard to earn. The sacrifice in life by the men and women of America and our other allies — that is all recognized with immense appreciation by the Afghans.
But the Afghan people have given a lot, too, in this war against terrorism. On a daily basis we are losing our lives, police, army, engineers, teachers, even our children. This the Afghan people understand. But they do not understand why for six years the Afghans have been saying to their allies that the war against terrorism will not be won unless and until we go to the sanctuaries, to the training grounds, to the financiers, to the motivators of hatred that come across the border to kill us all. [And yet] the allies have not heard us. If we see [the fight against terrorism] as an effort aimed at the right target, spoken about with us, with a proper identification of the problem areas, then we can go along, and in that situation if we suffer civilian casualties, all right, we will accept it. You can't have casualties and no end in sight.