Transcript from CNN's The Situation Room aired April 2,2010
Let's get back to the new tension -- serious tension right now between the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, and the White House, only days after President Obama's surprise visit to Kabul on Sunday. The United States wants Karzai to explain his new claim that foreigners -- foreigners are to blame for election fraud in his country.
Our senior political analyst, David Gergen, is joining us -- I -- I've covered Karzai, David, for a long time.
I was pretty surprised by this new tone from him.
But what do you -- how do you see it?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: Well, the administration is smoking on this one, Wolf. You know, they put an awful lot of effort into this. These extra 30,000 troops are on the way. They're -- and we're having great success militarily with the -- in the last few months, our troops have reversed the momentum in the war on the ground.
But everything now depends upon that not only continued momentum, but the Karzai government coming in and filling in behind and winning the hearts and minds of the people.
And for him to blast the U.S. after we've put in all this -- and the West -- after we put all these -- this treasure and blood in, is really angering people in -- in the administration. And it's going to anger the American people.
This guy is pulling on the tail of the wrong tiger. He's going to get swallowed by this if he's not careful. There -- the view in the administration, Wolf, is he's mercurial. They're not sure they can totally trust him. They'd like to see him succeed. But if he's not going to work with them, they're going to work around him. And they -- they'll make this thing work, because we're not going to put up with a guy who is -- is not only ungrateful, but mercurial and maybe corrupt -- and discouraged with corruption (ph) and, by the way, has recently been making forays into Iran and China.
Iran has been playing a double game with us on Afghanistan and China is no friend of -- of the NATO mission there.
BLITZER: Yes. And he just arrived back in Kabul only a few hours after returning from Tehran, as the president of the United States was getting ready to land in Kabul. I know U.S. officials aren't very happy with him cozying up to Ahmadinejad in Tehran.
But, you know, he didn't necessarily -- he didn't specifically blame the U.S. He blamed foreigners. He blamed Westerners, although the implication is certainly -- the major foreign presence in Afghanistan is the United States. So the implication is he's blaming the United States.
But listen to Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, who ran against him, the former Afghan foreign minister.
Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABDULLAH ABDULLAH, FORMER AFGHANISTAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He thinks by giving that message, he has taken a populist stand -- anti- foreigner. The people of Afghanistan may be -- there might -- may be widespread illiteracy, poverty, and many, many other illnesses. At the same time, to underestimate their awareness is a fatal mistake.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: You know, he makes the point that a lot of Afghans, they really want a strong, close alliance with the United States. They're not very happy about this.
GERGEN: Absolutely right, Wolf. And there are ministers around Karzai who are very friendly to the United States and we can work with, if this guy won't work with us and is not relia -- or not a reliable partner.
And you'll remember that General Eikenberry, who is now the ambassador, warned some time ago, before we sent troops in, that the only question he had and one of the reasons he raised a lot of questions about the surge was that Karzai and his -- and many of the people who are his allies are not reliable partners for the United States.
I -- I -- I can guarantee you that Eikenberry, who went to see him before Karzai called Hillary Clinton -- Eikenberry went to see him. I can guarantee you he read the riot act to him. There's bad blood there anyway. And the administration is not happy. And I don't know whether we can succeed with -- with Karzai. But I can tell you, there's going to be an effort made to succeed without him if he doesn't get on the team. BLITZER: Yes. It's a critical moment and we'll see what happens when he comes here, assuming he still comes on May 12th.
GERGEN: He's going to come.
BLITZER: Yes.
All right, David.
Thank you.
GERGEN: Thank you.