While Karzai might be a pain in the you know what, he's got a point --- The fact is, from day one there has been little thought given by this White House as to what would come after the Americans left. The result is continued military stalemate and little hope, in the near future, of a political settlement. Indeed, it seems tragically fitting that in the midst of this crisis, a US airstrike last week killed a child in southern Afghanistan – further symbolic evidence of the prioritization of military tactics to the disregard of Afghan politics. -- This speaks to the long-standing divergence between Karzai's interests and those of America's. Ultimately, the US sees Afghanistan through the narrow prism of the war on terrorism – and eliminating a potential safe haven for future al-Qaida terrorists. As Obama coldly noted in 2009, during the midst of his Afghan policy review, he wasn't "interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan" but rather for how it advanced US national security interests. -- This mindset placed the security of Americans over that of Afghans. To protect the former, the US was willing to put the latter in harm's way. At the same time, the administration consistently blanched at the potential domestic "political" blowback that would comes from jumpstarting a negotiating process with the Taliban, preferring instead to kick the military can down the road to 2014 and US troop withdrawal. -- For Karzai, the brunt of the US war on terrorism was being borne by his people with little long-term payoff for Afghanistan. When he would say "Al Qaeda was driven out of Afghanistan in 2001. They have no base in Afghanistan. The war against terrorism is not in Afghan villages and is not in the Afghan countryside", he was stating an unpleasant truth that was glossed over by US policymakers. From this perspective, that Karzai's redline appears to be the entry of US troops into Afghan homes is hardly a coincidence. -- In the end, Karzai will likely back down and sign the BSA. Unfortunately for the Afghan people, while the BSA – and the presence of US troops – may prevent immediately dire consequences, there is little reason for optimism that the country's 30+ years of civil war will end any time soon. So while Hamid Karzai might be a mercurial and paranoid leader who has made a bad situation vis-à-vis the United States that much worse, America's leaders would be wise to look at themselves in the mirror when casting blame. There's plenty to go around. - More, Michael Cohen - Gaurdian