The Obama administration should simply ignore the ranting of Afghan president Hamid Karzai and focus on what’s best for U.S. policy in the region, Harvard law professor and best-selling author Alan Dershowitz tells Newsmax.TV.
“How dare Karzai lecture us,” he said. “We should do what is in our best interest. We should prevent the Taliban from emerging again as a terrorist threat to the United States.
“We are not there to do the bidding of Karzai or the Afghan people.”
Dershowitz was speaking after a series of increasingly belligerent statements by the Afghan leader in the wake the killing of 16 civilians, allegedly by a U.S. Army staff sergeant, and the inadvertent burning of copies of the Muslim Holy Book, the Quran.
Among other things, Karzai has called U.S. troops “demons” equal to the Taliban. Saying he is at the "end of the road" with America, Karzai has also called for the restriction of U.S. soldiers to their bases, which would effectively end any operations against the Taliban throughout the country.
Dershowitz said the actions of one apparently deranged soldier in no way reflect U.S. policy in the war-torn nation, the site of the planning for the 9/11 attacks. Nor should the accidental destruction of Qurans by U.S. troops, holy books that reportedly had already been defaced by prisoners, be considered an intentional act of malice against Islam.
“You don’t judge a country by the way one crazy soldier, pressured by all the exigencies of war, may have done,” said Dershowitz. “You judge a country by what we do to that soldier, and we are putting him on trial, he has his own lawyer now.
“It’s the same thing with the Qurans. It was a well-intentioned accident. It doesn’t reflect American policy, we’re not anti-Muslim.
Editor's Note: Read These Other Newsmax Exclusives:
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.