Interview: 'I Know the Problem'; The beleaguered Afghan president takes aim at his critics.(Hamid Karzai)(Interview)

Byline: Fareed Zakaria

Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke with NEWSWEEK's Fareed Zakaria at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York last week. Excerpts:

ZAKARIA: Why is the Taliban making a comeback?

KARZAI: There is no political strength for the Taliban in Afghanistan. They are there in the form of killers of teachers, killers of clergymen, killers of schoolchildren. Is that a popular base? No. Why can they do it? Why can they come and burn an Afghan school? An Afghan clinic? It is because of a lack of a proper police force, lack of a proper military force and because of the general inability of the country, weakened by years of destruction, to provide that kind of protection to the public.

You've said either Afghanistan will destroy opium or opium will destroy Afghanistan. NATO says the trend line on this issue is going in the wrong direction.

What is that we have not done well that poppies are still there? Was it that our expectation was too high? Was it that we were naA[macron]ve in thinking that we could destroy poppies in a year or two? Or is the strategy that we are implementing flawed? Perhaps all three. It will take more than two or three or five years. It took 20 years in Thailand, it took about 15 years in Pakistan, it took about five to 10 years in Turkey. In Afghanistan, we should give it at least 10 to 15 years of very dedicated work. Anything short of that, anything in a hurry, anything with emotions will get us into deeper trouble.

Some Western military officials say you seem unaware of the seriousness of the military challenge posed by the Taliban or, if you are aware of it, are not energetically focused on it.