 Well, good morning. I think we can get started. My name is Scott Smith I'm the director for Afghanistan and Central Asia programs here at USIP Welcome. Thank you all for coming Now that you're here, I should say that there's maybe one slight problem with the topic that we're going to deal with today and The problem is is it even too premature to speak about Karzai's legacy after all I think yesterday we began or in Kabul they began an audit of these 8 million votes According to a deal that Secretary Kerry brokered last week. It will be a complicated audit. I Would not be surprised having gone through something similar myself with Ambassador Ida that it may be longer than expected And I imagine that to a certain degree The question that we're going to talk about today President Karzai's legacy will also be affected by how this Election comes to to an end Nonetheless, I think we all still have a great deal to say President Karzai has been leading Afghanistan in one way or the other for the last 13 years since December 2001 And we thought here at USIP that it was an appropriate moment while the election is being worked out to take stock of What has been accomplished in that time and by that I mean not only the state of the country that he'll leave for the next president but also Certain habits of governing that he has Adopted and that have become the model to a certain extent for an entire generation of Young people who have grown up during that time One of the questions I imagine we'll look at is was this the only way of governing? And another issue of course is the relationship he leaves behind with the international community and the US in particular Which will have a significant effect. I think over Afghanistan's development and progress in the next five to ten years if not longer The other tricky thing about the topic is that it's Karzai's legacy Not necessarily Karzai himself, but I have a feeling that it will be difficult in the discussion to separate the man from the legacy In my own thinking about this it seems to me that From a point of view of US foreign policy if not the foreign policy of the international community in general It's been difficult to have an Afghanistan policy And we've often more had a policy towards president Karzai Which means that the tools and the terms in which we've discussed this policy have been more sort of Psychological almost than diplomatic, you know, what is president Karzai thinking? How can we convince him to do this or to do that? Has president Karzai, you know lost his mind? These have all been features of the discourse about this president over the last 13 years and it's a testament I think in part to the fact that obviously constitutionally the president has immense powers which means that he is obviously the most important person in the country to deal with But I think it's also a testament to the sort of you know, almost Shakespearean complexity of his leadership and his personality So with that Our panelists I assume are here neither to praise nor to bury him But to try to give us a accurate assessment of the countries leaving behind what the challenges were what he has achieved What he might have achieved and how really enduring is This legacy how much has the Afghanistan that he's created in large part over the last 13 years become a permanent part of Afghanistan sort of new DNA or whether there will be aspects of it that can be Changed by the next administration. Whoever will emerge from this from this count So it's a complex topic, but I think we have an excellent panel for it Muji Mashal is a Young Afghan journalist who's just published two excellent articles on on president Karzai including one recently in Atlantic That introduces this topic really of his of his legacy Which is I have it here The men who ran Afghanistan, which if you haven't read it is is definitely worth a read General Allen who is a commander of NATO and ISAF forces in Afghanistan in 2011 and 2013 a crucial time during the transition to the Afghan lead for combat operations in Afghanistan and Has obviously dealt closely with president Karzai across the spectrum of Issues relating to that military relationship and inevitably in part the political relationship finally Ambassador Kai Aida who was the special representative of the Secretary General of the UN in Afghanistan between 2008 in 2010 During obviously the 2009 election that I mentioned earlier and while I will try to be an impartial Moderator I suppose I should disclose that I also worked with Kai during that period. So That does not mean that I will not challenge him on on on some points that that he may raise So what I'll ask the panelists to speak in the following order will Kai general Allen Mujib to speak for about 10 or 15 minutes I may have a few reactions and then we'll open it up to you for for questions. So with that Kai, I'll hand the floor over to you Thank you. Thank you very much Scott and thanks to the US IP for organizing this There have been many events here or the year I Spent in in Washington and I always enjoyed them very very much I Have to disclose also that I worked with him But I and I hope you will not be too critical today Let me go back to two statements made by Karzai when I talked to him in May this year One was Looking back at 2002 when they had just been installed as chairman of the interim authority. He said It was really a euphoric atmosphere I believe that the international community would come in and help clean the house and Then hand it over to the owner in good shape That was his thinking at the time and then he says about his thinking 13 years later. I See Afghanistan as a two-story house with the tenant upstairs does not interfere With the owner and how he organizes the house the tenant is welcome to stay the tenant is welcome to stay the tenant here being in the United States but The owner has to organize the house and sometimes he said The international community has treated some of gums as insects That's a dramatic statement and then you wonder what has happened in between this euphoric statement of 2012 and this bitterness that comes through in 2014 Today Karzai is seen as deeply critical of the United States. I believe that's unfair in fact I don't think he is Critical of certain things action that has been undertaken or certain policies that have been pursued But not all the US in itself and I would come back to to that Now why did we come to? Treat him the way we did in my view Because of a profound misunderstanding of the Afghan society and Bob Gates in his books There's also that is astonishing after 20 years. We've learned nothing about the Afghan society And then also a misunderstanding of Karzai as an Afghan leader Because when you when you meet him It's not like the other traditional Afghan leaders But nor is he like the leaders who have spent decades abroad to receive their education abroad etc He is there somewhere in between. It seems as it's very easy to to think Here is a Western Oriented leader dressed in Afghan clothes and Is far from the truth? President Karzai is Afghan to the core is an Afghan political leader and He lives in two worlds at the same time He lives in the old Afghan political context with his culture and traditions And he lives in the new world our institution established after the fall of the Taliban And where does he feel most most at ease? I think he by far feels most at ease In the old traditional Afghan world because that's his world that is a world in which he grew up And we tend to not understand that unfortunately We're discussing his legacy with him. In fact in May I asked him How do you see your legacy? He didn't want to respond So he pushed the question right back to me and he said, how do you see my legacy? Like can I answer? Well, mr. President first of all I see you as the consensus builder and said yes The consensus builder I very much wanted to be the consensus builder And I said well, mr. President, but that's not the easiest way of bringing a country from a to b And he said how do you define democracy? My answer was democracy is ruled by majority No, no, no, no That's impossible in this country In this country democracy must mean ruled by consensus If you apply rule by majority this country will go through conflict and fragmentation And I think he is quite right And I must say there is no other Afghan leader That I have met who understands his society and its complexity more than he does and even When I was there in 2010 and later Afghan leaders who have spent much of their time abroad came and said to me Look, I I admit now that he understood the situation much better than we did He understood the reactions in the communities in the south and the east, etc Much better than we did And I remember so well the one prominent minister who traveled with the president to the south And then he sent me An sms which was read Now I am in the real Afghanistan What did he mean to me? He was a person who had spent much of his life abroad and he discovered Afghanistan And I think Mojib also has experienced and he describes in his articles how He meets with the elders and the Mullahs during Friday after prayer for lunch and discusses So many things. It's a very relaxed discussion And you wonder sometimes and of course I didn't understand and Mojib does understand what was being said But I remember myself leaving the meetings and then thinking what was this about And it was about showing respect Enabling these leaders to go back to their communities and say The president showed us respect In that sense, I think he is A master politician and certainly the politician who knows the country best and then So Karzai the consensus-builder tremendously important at this juncture for keeping the country together And then Karzai the reformer And I must say From 2002 to 2014 the country has been through a tremendous Transformation Sometimes we overdo it a little bit and we become a bit Propagandistic in the way we use figures and so on. It's not as easy as we sometimes pretend But there has been tremendous progress And you cannot say that the man who has presided over this Is not an important part of that process He is And I think since we have Mojib here, I will also ask him what is The media for instance You are today in Afghanistan in a situation where the media society is More vibrant more open More questions are being discussed over and over again Than in any other country in the wider region any other country in the wider region Not only with male journalists, but female journalists And I remember one press conference with the president in his palace where one female journalist comes Raised her hand and asks him a very provocative question about corruption That would not have happened a few years ago So there is There is an important change. He is also the reformer Was did he manage to become Karzai the peacemaker as he wanted? Unfortunately not Unfortunately not in spite of all his efforts and in spite of wishing that so much and then we come to what you mentioned Scott the elections But I must say so far All the rumors we've heard He wanted to change the constitution to stay on He wanted to put in a weak president for four years so he could return He wanted to create a chaotic situation so that he could Declare a state of emergency and hang on to the presidency. Nothing of that has happened I believe Karzai is a person Who intends to leave As intended to leave throughout this process and let's hope that it can finish In peace and without any Further confrontation Just one more minute if I may stop There is a tendency to see him as anti-us Or very critical of the u.s Let me tell you one story In 2009 just before the inauguration of the president for his second term I gave a press conference And I criticized the warlords and I criticized the corruption Uh And I said I really believe that a future peaceful structure of the region has to mean that Afghanistan goes back to some sort of neutral stages Karzai became very angry and reacted publicly Most of the media believed that it was because of what I said about warlords and corruption Not at all He had heard that from me before he knew I had that six meetings with him trying to prevent him from appointing for him khan as candidate to the vice presidency He knew all that What did he react to? I had without consulting him Touched upon the most fundamental aspect Of a country's status and future If a country's Future is status I said neutral Without asking him and he called me up to his office and said I don't want this to be a neutral country. I want this country to be a close non-nato us ally And he repeated that in his inauguration speech A few weeks later What did it mean? in spite of the humiliation he had gone through During the obama administration with richard holbrook trying to get rid of him confirmed by Bob gays in his book in spite of that in spite of feeling that he was neglected In spite of feeling that he was not consulted He said that that relationship is critical to me His second term became Because his last term as president became one long effort at restoring Of gone sovereignty And I believe he was right because sovereignty and respect for A country's sovereignty is a precondition for its return to normalcy I think he has also done a tremendous effort in trying to restore that sovereignty And it will of course be up to his successors To choose if they will follow that course Or if they will find another but I do believe That he has made the framework for moving forward on a solid ground So in that respect, I do see president karzai as a historic leader Who managed to keep the country together Who managed to preside over a period of historical reform And who then rightly insisted On respect for his country as a proud All be it poor and warthorn country. Thank you Thanks, kai. Well Scott, thanks very much for the invitation to be here this morning It's always great to be at usip. These are important sessions. And I would say that Important to any gathering like this would be Probably at the beginning to take a moment To talk about why this gathering is important This is not just this isn't about cars. I per se. I think in many respects It is I believe a role of an institution like this In foras like this to talk about how we can learn from this kind of a gathering The challenges that leaders like president karzai Not only facing in his own country today, but his successor will will face and in other countries Similar to the situation that we find In afghanistan, I think it's also important another outcome of a session like this For us to hold the mirror up and to look into that mirror both as a People and as a country and to decide whether we can stand the reflection that we see And then finally A gathering like this ought to help us to inform The policy processes of the united states in particular For not just our current relationship with afghanistan and other States in contemporary situations like this, but our policy processes for the future So in that regard scott, thanks very much for convening this group and for usip for putting this on And let me start by saying with the bottom line up front, which is I think what you'd expect from a marine I believe that the historical legacy of president karzai is going to be far kinder to him Than many of the contemporary opinions are that are expressed routinely about him today And all of us on this panel were selected To comment or to offer our perspectives on what I believe to be an extraordinarily important individual and a very complex man With that in mind, we're probably going to agree on some issues and we're going to disagree on other issues but I I don't think that means that any of us or all of us are wrong it is because When one regards hamed karzai and his times And the complexity of the environment in which he has had to operate and the challenges That he's had to face It defies a simple distillation On the man or the circumstances So my I took my role on this panel to be one of providing the perspective of a military commander the isaf commander on president karzai and And I remember well our worrying about my first meeting with him We spent a lot of time actually preparing for that meeting It would define our relationship in many respects and would follow on what had been widely considered to be a strained relationship with general patreus it was mid july in 2011 And I was the fourth isaf commander in three years That president karzai was going to have to deal with and in and of itself That was a source of self-inflicted friction On the allied and the western side Turned out the meeting was a pretty friendly meeting and it was an opportunity for us to establish What I believe to this day is is a friendship I pledged him my support and my full energy In our partnership for the future But uh, not surprisingly afterward. I was amused and a bit alarmed At the palace press release of our first meeting And the many things that I had conceded to him In in a meeting which had I actually done that would probably have taken a couple of days, but nonetheless we We were able to get some work done. It established A standard I think for a good relationship in the future and when I called my dear friend The us ambassador ryan crocker To point out what I thought was a process foul on this First meeting and the press release he just laughed and welcomed me to afghanistan So this began a relationship that would span my 18 months of command And where I would see him at least once a week and often frequently and I I sought to make this relationship something more than casual I sought to make this relationship productive, but I also considered the relationship A friendship because he's really a very charming Charismatic individual. He's extraordinarily well read He once loaned me one of his books and said would you take a look at this and give me your thoughts on it And a month later You know marines take a while to get books read Uh a month later. He asked me where his book was And I brought him his book and a copy for me, which I asked him to inscribe and we had a wonderful conversation on The anglo afghan wars He knew us Far better than we understood him And the ancient culture of the pashtuns And the other tribes and the ethnicities of afghanistan and in this We were at a distinct disadvantage Or put differently He was at a distinct advantage in his leadership And I often told people That you could make a fundamental error In your relationship with president karzai by assuming that he is inherently a westphalian president In the context of a european leader He is in fact a tribal leader. He is in fact of the elite Of the tribes and as kai I think properly said many of those hard wired paradigms Were the first lenses through which he would view the challenges that we faced and the crises that we would ultimately have to solve And none of that's wrong And it shouldn't be alarming and it shouldn't necessarily be surprising it it came from the inherent responsibility that we all had To understand the environment in which we were operating as military professionals And ultimately to understand the inherent nature of this leader with whom we would deal He always was happiest when he was relating the details of afghan history. He was a I think of not just an afghan nationalist in that sense. I think he was an afghan patriot in that regard And sometimes he would be seemingly rambling from one topic to another and I would Sit there wondering where all this is going but invariably He'd bring it all back to the present And he would tie it all together very skillfully To address whatever issue or crisis we faced And would then use the very clear vehicle of afghan history To make the imperative or to make the point that we needed to solve the problems we were facing today Let me take you through just a few of the challenges that we face together because I think it helps to Define how he and I dealt on a day-to-day basis in our interaction And I'll go through these quickly, but we can certainly come back to them in the question and answer Sessions on any one in particular because each one of these was a substantial lift in our relationship The first was the negotiation of the strategic partnership agreement And while ryan crocker and I sat at the table shoulder to shoulder for most of the negotiating Session we dealt very closely on this issue and of course as you know as a direct result of the SPA We ultimately had to go into the negotiating of the bilateral security agreement as well and in conjunction with the Negotiation of the partnership agreement the strategic agreement. He convened the loya jurgen And this goes to I think a really important Point about the nature of hamid karzai as a leader and as a politician It is that he was masterful masterful in managing And manipulating Informal networks and when I say manipulating that is by no means intended in a pejorative manner He understood the people of afghanistan. He may not have been of their ilk necessarily hasara or Uzbek or ataji But he certainly understood them and worked very well informally in those networks as a tribal leader would To seek this consensus that I think kai properly talked about was his intention intention He was enormously frustrated with the us over our policy towards pakistan And he was convinced that we were fighting the war in the wrong place This flowed through a number of themes that we dealt with on a regular basis some of which were Frankly quite painful and that was the issue of civilian casualties Frustration over pakistani safe havens The heqani network and the cross border fires In 2012 and early 2013 in kunar part of which was a myth And part of which was a reality We also dealt very closely on the issues of detentions This goes again to this issue of president karzai seeking to establish and to reinforce The sense that afghanistan was a sovereign country And to rest from the united states and other countries the kinds of respect do To that country and due to its people and as we negotiated A contentious mo u for my turning over of several thousand afghan detainees to afghanistan That process and that sense of sovereignty came that came home in a very real way for me And then unfortunately when president karzai abrogated parts of the mo u I had to cease the turnover of detainees until such time. I was sure that They weren't going to be released ultimately to target us or afghan citizens of the afghans again We also had a period of time where we worked very closely on night operations and special operations and that resulted in a Memorandum of understanding as well where we sought to move from being unilaterally engaged in night ops spec ops To one where we partnered with the afghans to one where I committed to him and to the afghan security leadership The development of special operations capabilities where afghanistan could eventually operate unilaterally Without specific us or nato help And then very clearly it was a time of transition as scott properly said We were moving the afghan forces from being In trail to being in the lead. We are moving isaf forces from being in the lead to being advisory In nature, but very importantly for me. I worked hard And I know stan mccrystal had before me and ultimately dav petraeus in succession to him On trying to understand hamed karzai's sense of his ownership of the afghan national security forces as the commander in chief, but more importantly the ownership Of the afghan security forces in the context of the conflict that was being waged It was never fully clear to me what his attitude was And then of course we dealt very carefully and often on the issue of corruption Me trying to get him to work towards dealing with institutional corruption and him trying to get me To get our spending and our contracting processes under control And there were a number of other areas like the afghan local police and the elimination of private security companies And transitioning prt's where we worked together very closely But we also faced some world-class crises, which were very important In defining how we worked during times of real stress and crisis and I think that was An area that defined our friendship and we leveraged that friendship on a number of occasions to get to the The solution or at least to create to keep the crisis from spinning us off into space The first was the downing of my ch-47 with an entire seal strike force on board within a month of my taking command That was a very great That was a moment of great concern for him because he believed that we were beginning to witness that moment on the battlefield Which had been witnessed in afghanistan when the first stingers arrived during the soviet war And it was a moment of real concern for him and we worked that very closely together Then shortly after that the us embassy and my headquarters was attacked by suicide bombers And that was an area where we worked very closely in the solution of that and understanding how that came about Followed almost immediately a week later by the assassination of president robani the head of the high peace council The chair of the high peace council and all of the associated difficulties with that Then the salala event along the pakistani border Where 24 pakistani troops were tragically killed ultimately resulting in pakistan closing my Principal ground line of communications over which 80 of my supplies flowed into the country That was followed. You'll recall ladies and gentlemen by the urination video Where us marines were found to be urinating on dead taliban That created a sequence of events In in conjunction with the inadvertent and sad Burning of the holy quran At bagram, which began the process of the insider attacks Which really stressed the relationship between the west In general nato and the afghan government and president carzai But also stressed the relationship within the coalition itself as increasingly these insider attacks were eroding The consensus of the coalition to remain committed to afghanistan And then that was followed by the mass killing. You'll recall of the 16 afghans and balambay in panjwe district in kandahar And each of these whether it was a challenge or a crisis Permitted me to take the measure of the man And i found president carzai To be a worthy partner in most of these we didn't agree necessarily on many of them And often the outcome wasn't what either of us desired Uh, but it was it was these were moments where we had the opportunity to work very closely So against the backdrop Of these many factors. I think it's important to take Stock of president carzai's legacy under these many strains Uh, he has very strong opinions for example on the sources of corruption in afghanistan He blames foreign influences significantly in the united states in particular, but Was unable or unwilling to take credible and decisive action to curb the corruption within the country He remembers the us role in the shaping of the 2009 election which caused a lot of animosity and antipathy Towards the united states, I believe While avoiding at the same time the matter of substantial ballot box stuffing He was enormously critical of the us policy towards pakistan Uh, but did not Exert every effort to reach out to pakistan to improve that relationship And he would accuse the us of arrogance and malfeasance Demonstrating in the process his mastery of something else called brinksmanship Uh But at the same time he was confronting this we also had to keep in mind as as americans And I heard this first from uh, dave patrice and I tested it myself when I was there that many of these crises that we had With president carzai could easily have been solved If we had listened closely to him one or two or three years before When he'd raised the issue early along in the process and we were either deaf To the issue that he was raising or we Under resourced the solution and ultimately didn't really solve the problem And so issues about for example the private security companies That was a real issue to him and it was a real issue to afghans And we didn't solve it properly. He ultimately brought us to the brink and the creation of the afghan public protection force was the result Not the perfect solution, but it was a solution And the elimination ultimately is of provincial reconstruction teams In terms of rendering them as capacity building mechanisms rather than service provider Mechanisms which compromise the ability of local governance to develop and then ultimately civilian contracting civilian casualties and corruption these these were all issues where if we'd listened to him earlier And we'd taken the kinds of actions that he believed we should have he often provided us excellent advice in that regard This could have reduced. I think friction in many respects on many issues Now legacies take many shapes and invariably are formed in the eyes of the beholders I'm not take a crack at some of this and I want to be careful Because it's difficult even when he's before he's out of office to talk about his historic legacy. And that's why a panel like this is valuable I think in terms of how we look at the future and for policy processes But I think it's fraught with dangers in terms of the potential for criticizing a sitting president I'll leave to the afghans and I suspect I'll hear a bit in a moment From a very prominent afghan journalist How they view their president But from the many many afghans with whom I've dealt and I've I've never asked an afghan His or her opinion of their president because I believed out of respect to the president and respect to the afghan I did want to put him in that place It doesn't mean they didn't offer their opinions Um, and I always had a sense of their open But sometimes grudging respect for him They respected hamid karzai But there was also a sense of melancholy I believe on the absence of his presence and that of his governance In their lives and I'm talking about sub national governance, which we worked so hard to try to develop But uh, it defied my abilities when I was there as a commander. We can talk about that if you like But they were very proud of him in many ways. They were proud that he stood up to the foreigners of which I was one Um, but recently I think as regards the bilateral security agreement Which would enshrine a permanent presence for the foreigners many afghans were simply horrified That he seemed to be sacrificing their future in not signing an agreement and never fully explaining why Or clearly understanding why and I think in some respects In terms of a contemporary legacy We see that much ground was lost by the president in that regard Regionally, I believe pakistan will not view the karzai era And the relationship between islamabad and qabbal With much nostalgia Hamid karzai's views of pakistan were seldom positive Unfortunately that were frequently openly expressed which made the relationship difficult to manage Tehran, I think will not miss the president either For many reasons, but I think this goes to Kai's points about president karzai's journey and personal goals Of making afghanistan a sovereign entity to be reckoned with and I think that the at the iranians ultimately were to determine Even with the substantial presence in qabbal, they had much less influence over the president and over the the Parliament than they had hoped and the bilateral security agreement left a foreign presence in the country which iran Had consistently resisted NATO I think will view him in the short term as an unappreciative partner Who over time became increasingly difficult to deal with While only the president of hamed karzai can say for sure It's unlikely it is likely that he always viewed the enormity Of the 50 nation nato led coalition as too intrusive On the sovereignty of afghanistan and ultimately on his own authority But I think it we may have missed or he may have missed the larger point that those 50 nations Committed their blood and their treasure to afghanistan and thus tied Irrevocably the international community to the future of this poor and beleaguered country in ways We have probably never seen the parallel before in history afghanistan this poor State this nation emerging from conflict whose interests were the personal interests of 50 nations in the world I think that was a true advantage to afghanistan And then there's the us And he's being judged harshly frankly in the u.s. Perhaps unfairly so and will be likely for some time his inflammatory and provocative and sometimes disrespectful rhetoric aimed at this administration But sadly also aimed at the sacrifices of u.s. troops Was compounded by a sense of his ungratefulness for the u.s investment Uh again perceptions And this perception ultimately attracted the ire of much of the congress and the administration and taken together This actually put the us relationship and commitment to afghanistan in danger When I was the commander, I did not seriously consider that there was a possible likelihood of a zero option In essence the us pulling out completely of afghanistan and frankly taking with it nato and the international community But I have to tell you over the last probably six to eight months And in particular with the Rhetoric and the problems over the bilateral security agreement We came perilously close ultimately to a zero Option and we still don't have a signed bilateral security agreement Although I suspect that the soon to be inaugurated president will do so pretty quickly And unfortunately this has tainted his short term legacy overall And I believe it will taint it for a considerable period in the united states. But the truth is Hamid Karzai is a man with extraordinary abilities But with human frailties He was placed in one of the most demanding thankless positions on the planet And was forced to operate within a largely incapable government emerging after a generation of conflict Where he found not only difficulty in managing a national government from the palace But also in creating the kind of subnational government necessary to extend the writ Of cobble to the people He had to coexist and operate with the largest wartime coalition and modern era Inside his country while seeking to reconcile with the taliban and foreign fighters a rebellion and ultimately To bring peace to his people Few men have in my mind ever faced larger challenges for so long With so few real measures and tools to deal with any one of them individually Much less all of them simultaneously So yes, he was flawed And yes, he played fast and loose with relationships over time. And yes, he was provocative And no, he was not demented And no, he was not on meds None that I knew of But in a few weeks time when the next president of the islamic republic of afghanistan is inaugurated That new president will lead a nation still seriously challenged with a violent insurgency but one Profoundly changed for the better In the 12 plus nearly 13 years that hamid karzai Assumed his office in this troubled nation In that context while today, hamid karzai finds himself often strongly criticized As I said at the beginning, I believe a searching and detailed analysis of his administration and his presidency And of him as a man Will return a balanced appraisal of his legacy and how it was That after all these years of conflict Afghanistan could have come so far Under his leadership. Thank you Thank you, general. I think there's a huge amount there that we will be able to engage with a little bit later on His legacy so mujib the floor is yours Thank you scott I'm humbled to be part of such a distinguished panel and I I wanted to read a Few passages from the article I recently wrote for the atlantic It's called after karzai and it's in the current issue of the atlantic magazine I walked around for an hour this morning trying to find a copy I couldn't so It it tells you how well I know dc And everybody's briefcases They're all reading it at every break So I'll read a couple passages and then I'll have a few remarks about the president's domestic policy domestic legacy and in his local governance And and in providing the context for this passage I'll go back to one of the Points the general emphasized and how difficult it is to predict a setting president's Legacy and how challenging it is So here's the passage The afghanistan that karzai leaves behind is certainly a more inclusive and cohesive country than the fractured mess he inherited Among my own peers educated young urbanites Connected to the world and provided with free space for expression. There's a growing sense of nostalgia for him He's already he's largely seen as a man of great personal dignity Who despite his shortcomings tried to minimize the bloodshed that my generation was born into Our afghanistan is shaped by principles karzai saw as essential and non-negotiable But because of the president's style of leadership These gains appear tenuous Under karzai a relatively free press blossomed But every time threats against it emerged They have been blunted not by the institutions or laws karzai put in place But by by the president's personal intervention The same can be said of women's participation in society, which has grown tremendously But with few institutional safeguards Even the future role of the country's warlords is uncertain Karzai has kept most of these men off balance And he deserves credit for doing so Yet these men are not gone from public life They have continued to profit from contracts And investments largely tied to the presence of foreign militaries Vested economic interest is a major factor that keeps them loyal to the democratic system Indeed in 12 and a half years of karzai's rule many have sanitized their images these warlords Shorter beards fancier suits More politically correct language For better or worse their sons and daughters who seem more attuned to democratic practices Are now beginning to step into their father's shoes Sponta Sponta is Karzai's national security advisor Sponta says he doubts anyone could have fared better than karzai in such a fragmented society And yet the next president of Afghanistan Will inherit a broken chain of command Weak institutions and a variety of local powers that may prove difficult to bring to heal All the more so because he will lack the personal connections that karzai works so hard to cultivate The question whether the forces from the past will succeed again This is Sponta speaking the question whether the forces of the past will speak again Will succeed again or whether modernizing forces will take the country forward This has not been finalized Almost none of the achievements made under karzai appear irreversible Sponta lamented instead Afghanistan remains a place stuck between modernity and its own splintered history Which way it will move next is anyone's guess so this is I saw the president about a week after The first round of elections to find a successor to him in april And it was the feeling at that time was that he had done a good job staying neutral in the elections There was a sense of jubilation about seven million people had turned out to vote And and and karzai had proved his his his Critics wrong as ambassador id said There were a lot of theories conspiracy theories that he would change the constitution. He would stay in power So in april when I wrote this All that seemed you know false and the article went to the print and In the in the one month period until the article came out a lot changed And so to go back to the difficult nature of predicting hamid karzai's legacy So in that one month or one one and a half months until the article came out We had another round of there was a triangle of conspiracy Abdullah Abdullah alleged that there was a triangle of conspiracy Trying to steal the election from him and the triangle was the rival candidate ashraf ghani President karzai and the election commission so A lot changed and I started questioning some of the things that I wrote, but i'm glad that that Most of the questions that I had discussed in the article deals with his 12 years of leadership and his Particularly his style of local governance and and I like to Make a few remarks about that and and what sort of legacy he leaves behind I think at the end of the day the legacy that matters is the legacy on the ground Yes, the relationship with nato. Yes, the relationship with the united states will matter and and it will be questioned history But but what he leaves behind on the ground? Especially to my generation a generation that sort of is a product of his 13 years Will matter a lot so If we go back to to the sense of euphoria that ambassador id mentioned about 2002 When hamed karzai came came to power There was a enormous responsibility and enormous mandate to build institutions Afghanistan was pretty fractured over three decades of war And even the palace that karzai came to in Kabul. I remember during the Taliban days Uh, you know people could take a shortcut through that palace if they were going from one end of the city to the other There were no institutions people, you know Shepherds could bring their herd to that palace to graze on on the fortunately the president of local government I think that he I think I'll get beefy big fighting against it. You know, uh Found his precom to Kabul that's sort of local But friday, which is a day off and informals true And relaxed of a true situation on the ground as I wrote an effect There's absolute path and wanted to see the country say 10 years from now And the luxury that president karzai had Is so rare no other leader would have the amount of resources he had the amount of international support He had yet. He lacked a vision for the country when I spoke to those closest To him who've worked with him over the past 12 years Um freedom of experimental parts of the country But at the same time he's in terms of I'm honest to you who work with us in the The gender that's one of the more fascinating questions That if somebody like hamit karzai Is not sure of his physical or political survival every day Especially if you go back to 2002 Can he afford to be a visionary? And I went and I went to a kandahar To sort of trace this story a little bit in september 2002 and september 5th 2002 just a few months after And when I think about a very fragment his legacy is why weren't you a commander-in-chief? Why did you act in this and it's still a country and as a this seemed to be A level of tremendous Not I may have been building rock Uh berahimi wanted the light footprint. They all come in But it's quite clear that When when when some say he's now playing to his own audience afghanistan Every other corrupt being spent So I And we have people in the holy noses From the longest time in afghanistan And we very relaxed when he asked about afghanistan the ones he trusted the people he met About your relationship americans came into afghan americans Just like the first time in genevin 2008 As as general said the allies are either deaf or not doing enough And if part of it is natural also that this this perception of hypocrisy the cars I had if somebody is in power for 12 years or so On the on the other side of partnership. There's a change of administration And obviously that comes with change of policy But one partner is the same guy and he perceives that change as hypocrisy rather than just a natural change But but there were episodes in private that kept triggering this anger deeper So I am I'm convinced that it's no longer tactical antagonism But I think it also is it also goes back to what the general said that He knows the united states far better than the united states or some of the u.s. officials have known him And if and I think it it it proves a point in the bsa negotiations That the us threatened with the zero option that if you don't sign this we're gonna pull out all troops Yet several months later. We see that that hasn't happened So he knows how far to push the us Maybe sometimes he pushed the us he pushes the us too far and it's the us's patience and not And not sort of jeopardizing 12 years because they know that president carzai will be gone for Pretty soon, but at the same time. I think tactically We need to give cars like credit that he knows how far to push them And he's done that and the issue of bsa and and the and the funding military funding and the future of sort of us presence So general why why were we so deaf? And you mentioned at the beginning of your talks the importance of holding a mirror to ourselves. How responsible Or what share of the responsibility do we also have for where we are right now? Uh, well, I I'm not sure I want to engage in an exercise of self-flagellation here, but uh We didn't listen to him initially and I think we didn't listen to him because In so many ways we felt we had the answer I think in so many ways we felt that the exigencies Of the operational environment drove us to make decisions that we Would perhaps under other circumstances might have been willing to listen more closely A couple of things he and I had a couple of conversations about the issue of sovereignty and I think Both mojib and The ambassador hit it very Very clearly. It's a really important point as time went on and as we were very clearly facing The end of the large-scale international involvement in afghanistan Uh, I think the president rightly president karzai rightly saw that One of the most important things he could deliver perhaps tribal or ethnic origins and Forces to be in the lead in the entire in its entirety In the in the context of creating a stable and safe and peaceful afghanistan but I also Told him on a number of occasions and this is a conversation. I've actually had in a couple of places around the world that that sovereignty isn't Something that exists apart from the inherent responsibility of the people seeking sovereignty to act responsibly so sovereignty demands Responsibility and to be able to take responsibility for your actions and your words and your vision Such as of it may exist and I actually think he was More visionary than than perhaps some folks have given him credit for It also requires capacity And so the the frustration that we had often in our conversations was You know, mr. President. I don't I don't I absolutely do not disagree with you on any of these issues with respect to your ambitions for sovereignty But in order for you to be truly sovereign You have to be able to take responsibility for the actions of the system of the judiciary or the actions of the finance ministry or The actions of elements within the ministry of interior But you can't do that unless you have capacity and and that's what we're all trying to partner to do And if you don't like our capacity building tell us he frequently told me Issues he didn't like we worked very hard to try to lower survey and casualties and and frankly, we're pretty successful at that We worked very hard at ultimately getting after the business of war profiteering and corruption associated with this we created ultimately the Combined joint interagency task force of gunnistan, which is where we brought all the counter corruption elements together All the contracting elements all the spending elements all the threat finance elements We brought it all together where it should have been from the very beginning. We were not properly organized. That's the first Uh reflection that I would give you if we were to do this again We would have to be properly organized in the context of understanding organized criminality in the environment in which we're going to operate understanding it clearly and then Being organized ourselves once we understand it and can see it to ensure that we don't contribute to it Or don't exacerbate it in the course of the natural development and capacity building and reconstruction that would have to occur And i'm afraid we did and and i'm afraid that we came to the conclusion Far too late in the process that we needed to be organized in a task force about corruption and the denial of funds to the enemy In in a manner almost as important as a maneuver task force would be Because in the end the afghans were moving into the lead. What was going to win the war ultimately for the afghans was less about We also didn't I think And some in some respect fueled Six months and has clear of governance responsibility. Thank you to say who you are Bill bird with the idea that the u.s. So the question is more general probable bank raises money I have other choices that he made Especially based on the issue of now dealt with politically Rather than through the rule of law So in census politics I think after the election of 2009 he was the most powerful man in the country He could have spent the the last five years of his administration Building institutions and leaving behind strong east On the cover bunk. I I don't I don't have any objections to what you What you're saying and there's no doubt that There has been a toleration of corruption that That is unacceptable Can I add to that one thing? In order to systematically and systematically go after corruption you need a functioning rule of law system It's just about the most difficult thing to build You can build an arm tremendously difficult again very expensive Really got into the environment and the environment of organized crime Who dares to go after the real criminals I'll give you one example from Europe There's a place called Kosovo as you know Which is 1.7% That's and there were never any witnesses who dare to stand up So it's not an uncommon phenomenon Have we seen you when it comes to sovereignty? Is it more than Karzai himself? I think there's a question of Respect for the for the country and for for building as institutions And I do come back to what I said originally I do not think that we have taken Institution building seriously We have spent a lot of money into capacity building most Assessment of that capacity building as you know better than I did Says that it hasn't worked And in fact sometimes even has become an obstacle To building institutions And then finally in 2008 2009 we managed to get in place a real civil service institute That was going to Bring out thousands Of people who could then go to the districts and so on what happens The donors don't finance it They do finance when discovered now in me they do finance a young In the international via a donor agency of a big western country I was then given this a contract with It's a contractor from the same country And finance before foreigners to be in the ministry and this person earns $22,000 per month still For doing what writing reports Capacity substitution not capacity building That has been our expertise Can I do understand that his fear is about it? Because we have yes, we have built institutions that are much stronger than they were before But they could have been much stronger than they are Can you just mention one other example? When and I will mention it to somewhere before I was sitting in my office March 2009 in in Kabul I got a message on my email. It was from Richard Boucher then assistant secretary of state for For the reason and he wrote to me kai we will soon have a big afghanese conference in the Hague And you will be asked to chair it And Banke Mun will be there. I hope that's nice to War me about that in advance So I thought you know in due course I'll get to know more about it and then 45 minutes later Associated press carried the story from Brussels where hillary clinton had announced That there will be a big Conference in the Hague In the end of March Banke Mun would be there. Can she even mention that this young Mr. Eider? I'll court share it So I was puzzled and I called I called foreign minister Sponta And I said my friend, why haven't you told me about this conference? Is a which conference? What's this conference you're talking about? A conference about his country And he wasn't even informed The debate about the surge Should it be so and so many troops or so and so many troops? Was he involved? Or was he informed afterwards? He was informed afterwards About a massive increase of forces on his territory That's what sovereignty is about Consultation decision-making and not only the vanity of one individual Quick comment general No, I think it's very well All right, we had a question over here. We'll put one point on the capacity building They I think the overall absence of It's not going to happen, but the absence of a Coordinating authority The un tried very hard others tried very hard But the absence of an overall coordinating authority to bring together all the international efforts Really was a created a great difficulty. I think ultimately for us and for afghanistan. There is a lot that was built In afghanistan with no tail to it of these buildings and infrastructure facilities That afghanistan can't afford afghanistan doesn't have the money and I really had a sense of this in the in the period of time of the Insider attacks where I Sadly had a couple of of my officers Killed in the ministry of interior and I pulled all of my people out of the ministry in fact all of the ministries I sat people out of the ministries until such time as we Had a better feel for how badly this was going on and how far it might Descend What I didn't realize What I didn't realize because I'd never gone from office to office inside the ministry of interior were just how many international Presences that's a plural how much of an international presence was in that building until they all came running out When when we pulled the isaf troops out and they had nothing to do with isaf. They were individual national contributions So consequently You know sometimes as the ambassador said it worked against us. There was a nearly fratricide in some respects because we'd have a country earnestly trying to do the very best it could in investing people and money in an outcome That isaf might have been working or another element within the un or An element within nato And we out we worked against each other. So frequently we we were Not building the kind of capacity we wanted to and that's what the president Often honed in on this absence of a coherent plan for capacity building you could point to individual moments of brightness And moments of capability that emerged from it But that's what he pointed to very frequently when he was frustrated with the international community on capacity building There we are. All right. Thank you very much US IP and also the panels for the inside My name is zafar harshy me from voice of america's afghanistan service I had a question for ambassador idea in regard to his remarks about karzai being The consensus builder while afghanistan two weeks ago or less than two weeks ago was on the brink of a civil war and establishment of a Parallel government and it took the u.s. Intervention and john carrey's personal visit to avert the Karz one or two of his principle while at the same time the president has cared John carries visits I will Answer in the following way The best solution would have been if the afghans could have solved this themselves Clear In his inauguration speech in 2009 karzai said I want to organize the election process And that was after the interference trying in fact to Unseat him at the time Now that didn't work that didn't work and therefore I believe that the the visit by john carrey uh I had admire and respect the fact that he went there uh Sat down with the two and came to what for me is i'm gonna say the only obvious Solution at least when it comes to the counting If you disagree on how much to count count it all Hmm et cetera, but I must say carries hands on diplomacy In this respect is admirable is sometimes criticized, but I think it's admirable In 2009 When he came and we had a problem with the second round To have president karzai accept the second round He also played an extremely constructive role and I spent much of that those three days with him Um, and after afterwards karzai. I remember said John carrey is the American politician that I trust the most I think nobody were better placed than to do that and Through that answer I have half answered your question, but the voided part of it I think uh the question of the first lady is kind of Intrigued me for a long time also her sort of absence in the public sphere um If we go back to 2002 2003 there are some interviews of her with the local media and international media um, which shows that At least back then president karzai wasn't Against her speaking out or being publicly involved And she had said that she wanted to be involved in sort of healthcare for women in education and those issues um What I know from her involvement now is that she does meet people But she's not publicly Involved Which is unfortunate. I think she's a very well educated woman She's a medical doctor And one thing that afghanistan has lacked has been female role models after sort of a long Along blackout on women in society, especially after 2002 Sort of the morale was pretty low for women to get back involved in the public sphere So she could have been a great role model their education with her involvement It's unfortunate that it hasn't happened I don't have a clear answer, but I I agree with you that it probably is Being sensitive to the tribal realities and being sensitive to history And in the early part of 20th century, we had rulers who brought their who involved their wives in public politics It didn't go so well it that was one of the reasons of sort of Cues against them basically social coups at least so I think he's sensitive to that and and because he's a tribal person or He rules in a tribal manner. I think that is a factor that plays in her absence But at the same time what I what intrigues me is how she was first involved and now she's not I really don't have an answer to that. I think it was a question in the back Good morning. I'm Assad matin from auxis consulting Pleasure to be here I have a couple of questions for the master and also for the general general You are A real american hero And there's enormous respect in afghanistan for you I'm in afghanistan at least once a week. I mean once a month And even prison kazi has a lot of respect for you and he told me personally that you were the one you fixed the broken Relations diplomatic relations between afghanistan in the united states And also under watch the afghan give you credit for Decreasing the civilian casualties in afghanistan. Thank you. The question I would have for you is Afghans are really bothered by daily shelling of pakistani forces On eastern province corner of afghanistan In that's happening under watch of the nato more than a hundred thousand NATO soldiers being there I wanted to know your perspective and i'm sure that you had a meetings with your counterpart in pakistan What was their response? and also of course the flow of the Terrorists including al qaeda isi pakistani afghanistan taliban They've been shelling the american embassy the ice of it quarters most of the time I was there when they were doing that in how come we were not as a american superpower We were not able to tell pakistan it to slow down That's one question the other one is for the ambassador ambassador to afghanistan people love your book It's it's a great book in a game prison kazi told me he said in 2009 it was not if it was not because of i You ambassador called id he said he would have been insane because of you know Your assistant mr. Peter all broke and also whole broke Could you tell us a little bit about that so What was going on in the background in kazi basically said you know what made kazi the kazi of today And not the kazi of 2008. It was just you all broke and also uh Your assistant and of course you were the one you were trying as a referee to just bring some peace Kazi was very well managed Before 2008 by george at by george bush administration. He was a fine in We even call him a hero The best president the best this and that around the world and all of a sudden he became a zero and The reason he was told me And i asked him you know what happened Is is because i don't get respect from this administration And that's comes back to sovereignty I took a group of google and youtube to kazi and he was so impressed. He said my god Those americans are such a nice people He said why the americans that diplomats they don't behave like google in youtube Let's get rid of that allen guy Go ahead general Um The the border with with pakistan is uh is a very very difficult piece of terrain Chitral momand some of the Either the federally administered tribal areas or the provinces on the eastern side of that Frontier are very difficult Um I want to i'm going to say something about the border shelling and i want to be i want to be very very clear about what i'm going to say because I do not want to appear to be diminishing The importance of dealing with it and i know that my successor joe dunford Has spent a great deal of time working between afghanistan and pakistan In an attempt to to deal with this part of the shelling was A reality some of the shelling was not There were reports of thousands of rockets and artillery rounds coming across the border. He was creating a real panic in cobble And at one point i Got one of my helicopters and the ministry of defense minister of defense minister of interior The national the general the director general the nds And one of the leading members of the parliament We got in the bird and we flew to kunar where we met with the border troops border forces and then we flew over the villages that had been so badly shelled according to reporting And found that there was No shelling at all. There was no effect of shelling at all in these villages. No shell craters. No Dead animals that we had been reported on and so on But that didn't mean there wasn't shelling what we had to do was to understand the problem And that was my point ultimately back to cobble back to the security forces And back to the legislature the parliament was to make sure we clearly understood the problem because what we were doing Was creating a crisis for ourselves In many respects The first was that the border trace in case you didn't know it actually follows four different border traces You have the durand line Which i never mentioned in public in the palace For fear of the response that would get You had the the border trace that afranistan recognizes you have the border trace that pakistan Recognizes and you have the soviet era border trace and and none of those are the same they all go back and forth And consequently pakistan Those no excuses being made for pakistan here Subsequently or consequently pakistan frequently shelled areas they believed were within a border trace And the rounds were landing on afghans And afghans could prove that their border trace included them and pakistan was shelling sovereign afghan afghan territory We worked very hard with both sides to try to create measures Whereby if the pakistanis saw ttp elements across the border We would have the right of first refusal we being isaaf working in close conjunction With afghan forces would go up and get after some of these forces Bad reporting bad intelligence uh on both sides Made it much more difficult in really tough terrain to be able to solve this problem But i think in many respects while that was a major issue before and it's still an issue of a single round Comes flying out of pakistan and lands in afghanistan it is a serious issue I believe that much has been done to try to solve that To the point of cross border movement of terrorists and insurgent elements We worked very hard with pakistan to create an environment whereby if we could get pakistan To take action primarily in north waziristan against the hakanis We could solve a lot of the problems in the eastern five provinces to include Kabul of afghanistan um, just a very sad moment Was the 24th and 25th of november 2011 I'd spent a better part of a full day with general kiani alone in his office over maps Working out the way in which we would cooperate across the border. He would drive them across the border Large isaaf forces present along with afghan presence Would deal with them as they came across the border I woke up the next morning To find out that 24 troops had been killed overnight on one of my special operations operations in salala That broke the relationship with pakistan. They closed the ground line of communications and we lost nine months nine months of no communications whatsoever in the meantime The force levels of the isaaf forces were starting to come down And the afghan forces weren't operating up along the border because they had bigger issues to deal with with the taliban Deeper in the east and in the south And so while we had had excellent partnership across the border in 2009 and 10 and to some extent in 2011 that partnership basically ended at the end of november of 11 Didn't pick back up again until it's it actually still hasn't picked back up again. The other issue was we couldn't get pakistan Ultimately to attack the insurgent elements on the eastern side of the frontier that we really needed for them to go after Which was the hakanis And I ran as you may remember it was in the media I didn't spend a lot of time talking about it in public but we ran a very concentrated operation against The hakanis called knife edge where we committed We being in partnership afghanistan and isaaf committed large numbers of afghan special operators against the kanis The hakanis and they really proved themselves to be quite good As troops and it gave me a sense that we could accelerate actually the afghans moving into the lead But the cross border coordination is a very serious issue It's a major security issue that's going to have to be resolved over time And that's why my concern about the comment a little earlier about we have a zero Option that that is playing out here by the end of 2016. You know the new president I think is going to have to take a very real Clear-eyed Look at what the american policy is with respect to our advisors and the period of time will remain in the country And consider very seriously whether He needs to speak directly to the president of the united states about changing that policy Given the operational realities in afghanistan And I would I would certainly applaud that president whoever he's going to be To to undertake that very measure I in 30 seconds what happened in 2009 I think what The way started was of course that President obama decided to discontinue the video conferences that President bush had had regularly with president karzai And bush writes in his book. I made it a point of keeping in touch with him and not teaching him but advising The only way to Make him a real leader was to treat him as a real leader. I think that was a right approach And that was discontinued. There was also a very Acrimonious debate between vice president elect joe bighton just before They took over in in cover and then came whole group Then came And we had a slightly trouble relationship just before I arrived And we met at the brayer at the u.s. ambassador's residence and The first question that reached at whole brick asks me is When does your contract expire? I was actually sitting there with I was in that room, yeah And then started the hunt for a Somebody to run against karzai and when the day was over and And you had also been with whole brick now with karzai Karzai called and called me up to the palace and And we talked about the meeting and I cannot really remember who said it was it him or me But one of them said, you know Whole brick is after both of us That was a that was a feeling that was there already from the very beginning Unfortunately, and that that suspicion became stronger and stronger and stronger throughout the Throughout the election process, unfortunately Um, I had established quite a good relationship because I Uh, already because some some because I see we didn't catch it is and some other And and when he was going to Choose his vice presidential candidates And he asked me to come up to the office and said the second vice president. I said just so and so but Find your choice And uh, and then he said first I pursue I want to uh to bring in Marshall for him come Can I said let me think about this until tomorrow? Like because I was surprised and I came back and we had six meetings where I tried to Preventing from doing that. Uh, I didn't succeed. Obviously And why did you want for him? Why did you want to bring Dustin back was from Turkey? Because he could see that the turnout in the partial provinces would be low He needed alliances in order to win the elections Very very simple But at that time I must say I felt there was a turn in the direction of More reliance of that kind of forces and less on the reform oriented technocrats So that was in 2009 Then when he came to the real crunch towards the end of the election process Our analysis scott and I worked very closely together on this our attitude was Less not panicky, you know, we haven't hit the wall yet. There is something called the constitution and there are Institutions created by the constitution and we must allow them to do their work And we must try to assist them to see to it that they do their work properly That had to be the had to be the answer In spite of all the criticism that came from From some then John Kerry came and I remember during Kerry's period. This is anecdotal um If you permit The second day Kerry was there. He was in Helmand And I saw the president before And I sat down in his office and I said, Mr. President, can we go down To your small office downstairs instead of sitting in this big office because you never know what's being Listened to by whom So so we went downstairs and I said to the president we were sitting there I missed quite honestly that I was red in my face And because it was a very emotional meeting Can I say to Mr. President if you do not Follow the constitution and accept the second round Then I will resign as as R. G Because if the president doesn't follow the constitution Then there is no role for me who has insisted on following the constitution Like it was a meeting that I thought will last 10 minutes. It lasted 45 minutes. Did it have any impact? I don't know. Yeah, I think it had a personal impact, you know There is a certain kind of intimacy between you and you can talk about these kind of things Uh, Kerry came back. There was a long discussion certain things happened with certain ballot boxes And the next day president announced that he would go for a second round and the rest, you know, Abdullah withdrew The president continued for a second term and here comes the question was because you said he had all the opportunity During a second round I think President Karzai suffered throughout these five years from the fact that he never had the 50% It never hit that mark Therefore, I think he has felt that he did not quite Have the legitimacy that the constitution required for from a president And and he blamed that on the Obama administration I think Scott could I just add a little bit to I I think the the legitimacy question is Really interesting and you and I had a discussion about this in Kabul also But I think in terms of public perception One thing that I've noticed past five years that Karzai was not challenged over his legitimacy The opposition Abdullah could have done it very easily or any any of the opposition politicians could have challenged his legitimacy But I think we throw that out there also that publicly he didn't get challenged over the past five years It was yes. It was a personal pain to him absolutely, but in the public discussions. He wasn't challenged I think that brings us to the end of our time And I think it's obviously a topic which is much bigger than two hours allows but For me the discussion even though I've lived through some of this and Seen others of it and studied others of it has still been fascinating and revealing So I want to thank our three panelists and I want to thank all of you for coming and for your and for your questions And maybe this won't be the last time we host this kind of discussion But I think for the for the first draft it was it was extremely good. So thank the three of you very much Thank you. Thank you