THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

And he is holding out on the signing of the SOFA until we agree to what he wants. And to add a little spice to the deal, he is shaking his booty at investors from India to replace those from Europe and the US.

Barhate, business development manager for Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd. (JI), Asia’s largest irrigation-equipment maker, said the Indian embassy had warned him against investing in a solar-power plant in Afghanistan. Karzai, who met billionaire Malvinder Singh in New Delhi at the start of a trip to India that ended yesterday, said little to reassure Barhate that the country would be safe if all U.S. troops withdraw next year.

“There’s no problem of competition, money, land or potential in Afghanistan,” Barhate said after Karzai’s Dec. 14 speech in Pune, India, where the president met about a dozen business leaders. “There’s just one major risk, and that’s security.”

As Karzai explains his reluctance to sign a security pact with the U.S. to political and business leaders in the region, investors are voicing concerns. The agreement would assuage businesses seeking to tap mineral resources estimated at $3 trillion and ensure that the country’s 31 million people, who live on an average of less than $2 per day, receive billions of dollars in aid money over the next decade.

“I don’t think the Americans are thinking of the zero option,” Karzai told reporters in New Delhi two days ago, referring to a scenario under which all U.S. troops might leave Afghanistan in 2014. “It’s a brinkmanship they’re playing with us. Even if they did, then come what may.”

Karzai said he would not sign the pact until the U.S. shows that it has put an end to attacks on Afghan homes and publicly starts peace talks with the Taliban. The two conditions are an “absolute prerequisite” to conclude the agreement, he told reporters.

Later in the day, the Afghan leader told a group of business leaders in the western city of Pune that President Barack Obama’s administration would succumb to his demands.

We hope that Karzai of the Afghans doesn't remember that Iraq had lots and lots of what we wanted at the time, crude oil. Nevertheless when Iraq demanded essentially the same conditions as Karzai of the Afghans we said no and pulled out.