Since the fall of Taliban government in 2001, the authority of Afghan government has been under question. Specifically speaking, there have been serious doubts about the capacity of Afghan government in major decision making. The Taliban call the government as the ‘Puppet of the West’ while the West never misses an opportunity to pressurize the government for its failures especially in countering the rampant corruption which has caused Afghanistan to stand among the most corrupt countries of the world in Corruption Index of Transparency International. To all these the present administration has remained no less than others. It has been sharply criticizing the West for promoting the culture of corruption in Afghanistan and unnecessarily meddling into the internal issue of the country. All such allegations have been rejected by the Western authorities from time to time.

Although President Karzai admits to the presence of low level corruption in Afghanistan but he accuses the foreigners for embezzlements of billions of dollars. While the issue of blaming and counter blaming continues between Afghan government and the West, the real problem which is growing is that corruption remains solid and unaddressed. Apart from encouraging corruption, President Karzai charges the foreign countries for damaging its government’s peace plan.

On Tuesday, January 26 President Karzai once again pointed fingers at the Western governments. He said the foreign governments are pursuing a plan to weaken the Afghan government. Speaking at a national conference on management of water resources, he accused the foreign countries of trying to distract the peace and reconciliation process from its main purpose by intending to hold meetings with Taliban without keeping the High Peace Council (HPC) in the loop. Such a measure, according to him, is an effort to weaken the Afghan government and would have no impact on improving the security situation in Afghanistan. Also, he called upon the Taliban not to hold peace meetings with any party other than HPC.

The Karzai administration has been putting much weight on the peace and reconciliation program and with soft stance recently shown by Pakistani authorities hope of political deal with Taliban has multiplied. Nonetheless, the process continues to remain fragile as there is no indication of a strong intention from Taliban to enter a peace deal with Afghan government. At the same time, it should not be forgotten, the peace and reconciliation process is being majorly funded by Western countries.

President Karzai may be right about the intention of the West. Nonetheless, there are many other issues like the growing insecurity that need serious attention from Afghan government. For many people emotional speeches by Mr. Karzai only means an effort to conceal the deteriorating security condition and failures of the government in other important areas.