KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – Outgoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai used his farewell speech on Tuesday to take one last swipe at the United States, capping a long-testy relationship with the accusation that America hasn’t wanted peace in Afghanistan.
The only president Afghanistan has known since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion said the United States wanted war in Afghanistan “because of its own interests.” Karzai’s relationship with the U.S. has grown increasingly fragile in recent years, but the U.S.-Afghan relationship may get a reset on Monday, when President-elect Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai will be sworn in.
The United States has spent more than $100 billion on aid in Afghanistan since 2001 to train and equip the country’s security forces, to pave crumbling dirt roads, to upgrade hospitals and to build schools. But Karzai in his speech thanked a slew of countries for their help – India, Japan, China, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Germany – without mentioning the U.S.
The speech fingered the U.S. and the military leaders of neighboring Pakistan as the powers backing perpetual war.
“If America and Pakistan really want it, peace will come to Afghanistan,” Karzai said. “War in Afghanistan is based on the aims of foreigners. The war in Afghanistan is to the benefit of foreigners. But Afghans on both sides are the sacrificial lambs and victims of this war.”