Ahmed Wali was on his way to becoming the next governor of Kandahar. Even the Sherzai family, which has traditionally competed with the Karzai's for influence in the province, were petitioning President Karzai to appoint Ahmed Wali as the next governor. There were very good reasons for this move: since his election to head the provincial council in 2005 (Ahmed Wali is the most popular leader in Southern Afghanistan, one of the few in the country who can be said to have achieved his post through legitimate popular voting), Ahmed Wali has solidified his position as the King of Kandahar with American assistance. It makes sense that he should have transitioned from being the most powerful man in the province to being its official ruler.

The problem with the reliance on Ahmed Wali, however, is that it is deeply against any normal traditions of government. Even the "bottom-up" governance projects the military has undertaken rely, even if vaguely, on pantomimes to institutions, laws, and process. While Afghans intuitively accept hereditary inheritance of positions of power, there's no real legal structure to make them official, aside from the President appointing a replacement (which brings us back to the interesting question of whether Shah Wali will be able to command the same electoral popularity Ahmed Wali did).

If the ultimate goal of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, and for that sake Hamid Karzai's survival strategy, is a working government that can safeguard national interests, then solidifying one family's control over the province is not how you do it. In 2004, Gul Agha Sherzai, the abusive thug who ran Kandahar into such disarray in the mid-90s that the Taliban emerged as a popular resistance movement, was transferred from his governorship in Kandahar to the governorship in Nangarhar. He was meant to replace Haji Din Muhammed, an old mujahideen commander who was widely believed to be corrupt and ineffective.

The Sherzai family had been prominent in Kandahar for years, and, despite disruption by the Taliban for a few years, continued to exert a lot of influence and control over province-wide politics. By removing Gul Agha to a province hundreds of miles away, Hamid Karzai cleared the way for his own half-brother to ascend to prominence in the city. Ahmed Wali's association with his half-brother President allowed him to become the main power broker in Kandahar, controlling literally billions of dollars in ISAF programs over the years and acting as a veto authority on all appointments and official actions.

At the same time, Ahmed Wali was charismatic, devastatingly charming in person, and skilled at doling out money, resources, access, and favors to make a huge number of Kandaharis either dependent or grateful. In some ways, Ahmed Wali's method of rule was Afghan politics -- reliant on personality, favors, patronage, occasional acts of intimidation or violence, lots of shady business deals to secure a personal fortune. But it was also antithetical to the rule of law, sustainable governance, and even long-term security.