WASHINGTON: On Monday, The New York Times revealed that the CIA has been funnelling tens of millions of dollars to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The cash payments - delivered to his office every month - arrived in suitcases, backpacks and plastic bags, and were meant to buy the mercurial leader's loyalty. But according to the Times, the Langley-approved gravy train did more to fuel corruption in Afghanistan than anything else - the very corruption the US government has been crusading against.

None of this should be all that surprising. The CIA has a long history of showering cash on friendly heads of state, often with results that bear an uncanny resemblance to the CIA's efforts in Kabul. The agency got its first taste of what a few good suitcase-toting men could accomplish in 1948, as communists threatened to win elections in Italy, by launching a cash-transfer program that delivered large sums to its favoured political party, the Christian Democrats. And it worked.

The CIA has a long history of showering cash on friendly heads of state, such as Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Credit:AP

The Christian Democrats beat the communists and cruised to victory. But this early success would later prove elusive. When, in 1970, the agency tried to reprise its campaign in Italy, it played an unwitting role in funding a failed neofascist coup and right-wing terrorism.

It's a pattern - blinding success followed by crushing defeat - that has become all too familiar in the agency's history.