Brussels: Karzai the only dice in the game

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's outburst against his Western backers last week has fueled doubts about their involvement in Afghanistan but they have little choice but to continue supporting him.

Karzai accused Western embassies of carrying out election fraud and of seeking to weaken him in presidential polls last year in which he himself was accused of cheating.

Washington dismissed the claims as "just not true" and "disturbing," and initially suggested they could put a May meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Karzai in jeopardy.

Several other contributors to the 44-nation NATO-led force in Afghanistan -- 40 percent of which is made up of non-U.S. troops -- also showed their dismay at the unexpected comments.

Britain, where many are concerned by the mounting death toll among its 9,500 troops battling Taliban insurgents, called the comments malign and the Netherlands called them deplorable.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the remarks were "completely unacceptable," while NATO said it hoped the Afghan leadership understood the sacrifices of the alliance's 90,000-strong force, which lost more than 700 troops last year.

However, the United States has since appeared to roll back, saying Karzai's Washington visit would go ahead as U.S. officials try to get on top in the eight-year conflict.

On Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen took a pragmatic line, saying Karzai might not always do and say what allies liked, but it was necessary to work with him.

"He is the political figure with whom we must engage in Afghanistan... He's the man with whom we can and will and must cooperate," Rasmussen said on a visit to Chicago.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, whose country has 4,300 troops in the NATO force, was also diplomatic.

"We work together well with the Afghan government," he told Bild newspaper. "However, we expect President Karzai to stick to the goals he set himself, like tackling corruption."

KARZAI'S "RISKY GAME"

Farzana Shaikh, from London's Chatham House think tank, said Karzai seemed to be calculating that in the absence of a credible alternative, Obama had no choice but to continue depending on him. But she said he was taking a risk.

"It appears on the face of it to be a game of straight brinkmanship...Of course, his bluff could be called, which is why I'm saying it's a risky game," she said.

"What we're seeing is a war of words that might prove damaging in the long term but that might also evaporate."

Shaikh said the row came at an awkward time for Western governments, before an expected military operation by the international force in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar.

"There might well be a popular mood in Western countries with troops in Afghanistan, a sense of 'Why on earth are we supporting a man who doesn't appreciate our efforts?'

"But that popular pressure is not something Western leaders are unaccustomed to. They have already weathered that storm."

Defense analyst Charles Heyman said Karzai's comments were bound to increase doubts in Western public opinion.

"The domestic population in the U.S. and in Europe...are probably looking at their politicians and saying 'Where is all this going? What's going on?'.

"'There's an enormous amount of blood and treasure being expended in Afghanistan, and you don't seem to be able to work in tandem with the Afghan leadership. Something is going seriously wrong'.

"'If the Afghans are saying they don't particularly want us there, what are we doing there in the first place?'"

Roman Kuzniar of Warsaw University called Karzai's comments "scandalous" but said they had to be taken seriously and added that not all troop-contributing nations had the same interests.

"The U.S. has its vital interest in Afghanistan, so they believe they have to support Karzai no matter what. But other countries can choose whether they want to participate in this."

Kuzniar said Obama had set a 2011 deadline to start cutting U.S. troop numbers and countries like Poland, which has 2,140 troops in the country, should focus on that timeline.

"Poland has no interests there...we cannot just stick there for ever. Obama said 18 months, so by then we should not be part of this farce there any more," he said.