WAPO piece about Petraeus butting heads early on with Karzai about creating local militias to battle Taliban:
As he takes charge of the war effort in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus has met sharp resistance from President Hamid Karzai to an American plan to assist Afghan villagers in fighting the Taliban on their own.
A first meeting last week between the new commander and the Afghan president turned tense after Karzai renewed his objections to the plan, according to U.S. officials. The idea of recruiting villagers into local defense programs is a key part of the U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan, and Karzai's stance poses an early challenge to Petraeus as he tries to fashion a collaborative relationship with the Afghan leader.
Senior U.S. officials say that the United States would like to expand the program to about two dozen sites across Afghanistan, double the current number, and are hoping to overcome Karzai's concerns. But the issue is delicate to many who fear that such experiments could lead Afghanistan further into warlordism and out-of-control militias.
You have to wonder if the "fear of warlordism" is just a clever rationale for a Karzai eager to get his desired deal with his fellow tribesmen Taliban, because if the deal is cut with Taliban, doesn't that present the same problem--just with preferred winners as far as Karzai is concerned?
Makes you wonder about a disconnect between an Obama administration thinking about deals with the Taliban and a US military pursuing the local defense path. Of course, the two can also work together nicely, under the right conditions, but again, once you make peace with the Taliban, you arguably are forced down the path of leaving the locals defenseless against their encroachments.
Eventually, the Afghan government approved the program. The deal puts the forces under the Ministry of Interior, assuaging Karzai's fears of a loss of central control.
Fair enough, but you see the underlying tension between a US military strategy that accepts or promotes local empowerment and a government approach that fears that outcome.