Thieving politicians imperil Afghanistan - FT.com Not content to stand by as insurgents strafed the parliament in Kabul at the weekend, one MP commandeered a machinegun from a guard, scrambled on to a rooftop and began to fire back. "Parliament is my house, and the house of the nation," said Mohammad Naeem Lalai Hamidzai. It is my duty to defend my house from my enemies. Such have-a-go patriotism might give pause to those who see only a bleak future for Afghanistan. Yet Mr Hamidzai's enthusiasm for the fray was also a reminder that violence is never far from the edge of Afghan politics. As the US and its allies begin to withdraw the bulk of their troops, attacks such as Sunday's raids in Kabul are likely to dominate the news agenda in the west. Yet the most insidious threat to Afghanistan's future is not posed by teams of brainwashed young men in search of martyrdom, but by the kleptocratic political order that has sprouted in the decade since the US invasion. Unless Afghanistan's allies start to ask harder questions about how the country is governed, then the handover to Afghan forces in 2014 will be the starting gun for another phase of bloodshed. Debate in the wake of the latest attacks has followed familiar contours: Will Afghan security forces be ready? How long will western voters bankroll the campaign? Will the Taliban talk? The spectacle of suicide squads infiltrating layers of security around Kabul to fire rockets at embassies and military bases does not bode well on any of these points. Yet the discussion risks obscuring the most fundamental issue: Is the Afghan political establishment fit for purpose? The answer may well be No. Without sweeping reform, the fighting will go on. The weekend attacks were designed to convince Afghans that their government is too weak to protect them. After years of corruption and cronyism under the administration of Hamid Karzai, the president, few need such persuasion. Though there is widespread support in Kabul for people serving in the Afghan army and police, there is much less respect for the government they are fighting to uphold. The fact the insurgents succeeded mainly in killing themselves (36 died while security forces suffered 11 dead) is less significant than the fear they inspired. The virulence of protests that erupted in February after copies of the Koran were burned at a US base exposed the tension simmering in much of the country. With nobody sure how many US troops will stay after 2014, old civil war factions are rearming. Ethnic faultlines are deepening. The sense of uncertainty grew last week when Mr Karzai said presidential elections might be held in 2013 - a year early. The thinking is that it may be better to stage them before too many more foreign troops have left. If the blatant rigging of the 2009 presidential race is any guide, they will be unlikely to address the disenfranchisement afflicting much of the population. In a measure of the mistrust with which Mr Karzai is viewed by some critics, some Afghans are even convinced he ordered Sunday's attack to serve some Machiavellian purpose. With the US pinning its hopes on striking a deal with the Taliban, Mr Karzai's government may simply lack the legitimacy needed to guarantee any form of accord. As the International Crisis Group, a think-tank, warned last month, a peace process comprised primarily of a carve-up of power between unsavoury elites could trigger worse violence. The US and its allies have long been guilty of placing far more weight on the military wing of their campaign than on fostering Afghan governance. It is time to reverse the imbalance. Perhaps power needs to be devolved to provinces to foster accountability; certainly more needs to be done to train civil servants and tackle an entrenched culture of bribery and embezzlement. Unless a real attempt is made to shut down the drivers of 30 years of conflict, 2014 may be one more milestone on a path of perpetual war.