GMF - The German Marshall Fund of the United States - Strengthening Transatlantic Cooperation

As Hamid Karzai’s Afghan presidency enters its final year, it’s not too early to consider the question of who will become his successor. The options are limited, with some of the potential candidates threatening to steer the country on a course toward alienation and political unrest, undermining a decade of progress.

Although Mr. Karzai has promised to step down and not seek another term—he is, in any case, constitutionally barred from doing so—he is no lame duck.  He alone has managed to rise above Afghanistan’s complex ethnic and tribal divisions and would undoubtedly use that advantage to become kingmaker, creating a coalition to support his preferred successor. His recent anti-U.S. tirades suggest he is trying to gain ground with so-called nationalists and portray himself as a man of the people. He has also surrounded himself with a cohort of aides associated with the hard-line Hizb-e-Islami–Hekmatyar group.

 Read the full article from the Wall Street Journal here. 

Javid Ahmad is a Program Coordinator with GMF's Asia program where he works on a range of initiatives, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, India Trilateral Forum, Global Swing States, the EuroFuture Project, and the Brussels Forum. Ahmad's writing has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek's Daily Beast, The National Interest, CNN.com, and Foreign Policy magazine’s AfPak Channel.