Despite his “corrupt and largely ineffective administration … reviled by many at home and viewed warily from abroad, especially by top U.S. officials, who say his lack of leadership has greatly hampered efforts to overcome a potent Taliban insurgency and allowed the opium trade to flourish,” it looks like Hamid Karzai will remain our man in Afghanistan anyway, thanks to a lack of serious competition for the job.

As the U.S readies to send 21,000 more troops into that country to carry out accelerated (not Surge!)  counterinsurgency operations, including drug interdiction, commanders and policymakers are no doubt looking for an Afghan Maliki — the strongman ally who can wield the force of the central government and army like a bludgeon against the insurgency in tandem with our sophisticated firepower. Today, thanks to the U.S, Iraq has an “authoritarian prime minister,” who helped to suppress the Sunni insurgency and al Qaeda long enough for us to begin our departure  (though what we leave behind is hardly ideal, in fact the fragility and shortsightedness of it all is already showing.) Stay tuned.

But Karzai marches to a different beat, and increasingly not ours, no matter what he might say to administration officials when he comes to court this week. It is not clear that eradicating the heroin market is in Kabul’s interests, nor are human rights, or even undermining the Taliban (at least in the way we clearly want).

He’s been called a U.S puppet in the past, but Karzai hasn’t been an effective one. Now, when it would be very convenient for a more pliant Afghan leader to step up, like say, Zalmay Khalilzad, there doesn’t seem to be one. The only viable candidate, Gul Agha Shirzai — a popular governor with a reputation of corruption and milking the poppy trade — pulled his bid yesterday after a lengthy closed door meeting with Karzai. No one claims to know what was said it that meeting, but it’s been suggested it had something to do with Shirzai running in 2014 instead.

So, Karzai has a lock on national politics, but Kabul remains weak and corrupt. Not exactly fertile ground for successful COIN or another feather in Richard Holbrooke’s cap. But it is important to the Obama Administration that it make something happen in “Af-Pak” and soon. Looks like Karzai’s seat at the table is not only assured, but in a better position than ever.