The election sheds a great deal of light on this, of course. Not simply because of the massive fraud in the election, although that’s an indicator of something going on, but it’s relevant because President Hamid Karzai was forced to make deals with all of the warlords throughout the country–to give them even more privileges politically than they already had, in some cases carving either new provinces or parts of provinces under the control of the warlord in question, and in other cases assuring warlords that they wouldn’t face any legal action for their war crimes or for any other crimes they might be guilty of.
And in every case, he assured them that no move is going to be made to diminish their de facto power in the provinces. This, of course, is the essence of the problem that the so-called government and the foreign military presence face in trying to combat the Taliban. Full article.