Afghanistan is seeking to sign a strategic agreement with China. Javed Luddin, the Deputy Minister of foreign affairs, has said that such an agreement with China would be highly valuable and would not be in conflict with the interests of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has struck long-term partnership deals with some Western powers, including the US, Italy, France, German and Britain. It has also signed such a pact with India.

These agreements caused concerns for the neighbors. For instance, Iran is believed to have allocated 24 million US dollars to bribe Afghan members of Wolesi Jirga or lower house of parliament to reject and disapprove the Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) with the US.

Although it was a great success for the Wolesi Jirga to approve the SPA almost unanimously, it endorsed it under completely politicized circumstances and in a completely rash fashion. For instance, it is said that the presidential security advisor, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, had threatened the MP's to vote in favor of the SPA or they would face their names being disclosed as receiving money from the neighboring countries, in particular from Iran.

In general, there was a sort of consensus among Afghans and their representatives that having a strategic partnership agreement with the US would be in the interests of the country. This is because the country continues to rely on foreign aid and its security forces are yet to acquire the required capability, skills and the equipment to defend the country against both internal and external threats. So there was not any need for threatening or other tactic. In addition, the SPA was prepared by the government without any inputs from the MP's and civil society and human rights groups.

There are some major groups that question both the procedure and content of the SPA with the US. A day after the SPA was signed, President Karzai talked to journalists and emphasized that there is a pledged support on the part of the US in the SPA for the centralization of political system and power structure, which many political groupings and observers believe has been a main cause of the failures and growing corruption over the last ten years.

Now Afghan government is seeking to sign long-term agreements with some big regional powers as well. The question here is, "Will the Afghan government be able to implement all these agreements given the fact that some of them could become conflicting because of the very conflicting nature of regional and international politics and policies pursued by those nations that have entered or enter into agreements with Afghanistan?"

Their policies are guided by their national interests and these interests could be conflicting. Unfortunately, over the last ten years the government has been extremely myopic, and has shown erratic and mercurial behaviors towards the Western countries and the political units in the region and neighborhood.