(Pre) Afghan Journal: Attack on Karzai

This reporter still waits in Frankfurt for the flight to Kabul. The Afghan national airline does not yet have daily service, so the road east remains hurry-up and wait.

However, most TRNS website readers have by now heard about yesterday’s attempted assassination attempt of Afghan President Hamid Karzai as he attended ceremonies honoring Mujahedeen Day, which honors Afghans who resisted the 1980s Soviet occupation. To some, the attack stirred nasty memories of the assassination of Anwar Sadat, murdered in 1981 while reviewing troops near Cairo. Fortunately for Karzai (and U.S.-Nato policy), the Taliban missed.

This attack is the essence of so-called Fourth Generational Warfare (4GW): it may fail in its ultimate object (to assassinate Karzai) but it succeeds merely by having happened. Thus, several hundred rounds of machine gun fire and a few mortars shells produce the perception of profound instability, at a fraction of the cost of a traditional military operation.

FourGW is aimed at media and news consuming elites. Thus, this morning’s International Herald Tribune appropriately gave the story right front billing: “Karzai Survives Attack At Parade/Assassination Attempt on Aghan Leader is First in the Capital.” Score one for the Taliban.

FourGW is also the quintessence of political war and in Afghanistan, this is a political year with Hamid Karzai standing again for the presidency. If the Taliban can reinforce the meme that Karzai’s authority–which in Afghanistan is always entwined with the ability to provide security–does not extend even within the city limits of Kabul, it might weaken him in favor of an opposition that just might develop a harder line on Coalition forces in-country and a softer line on the Taliban itself.

Stay tuned.