When you think about it, it’s not hard to understand why Hamid Karzai can be a bit, well, prickly at times. I don’t think anyone aspires to grow up to be President of their home country while it is host to foreign armies and additional legions of diplomats and technocrats, all of whom can either tell you what to do or simply disregard your edicts. That heady sense of Presidential power is bound to be limited when the only people with the power to enforce your governance often see it as counterproductive at best and corrupt at worst, and often seem to nod sincerely at your demands while stifling their laughter at your practical impotence.

Today Karzai has officially banned private security firms from working in Afghanistan, giving them a firm four-month deadline to cease operations and leave the country. Show of hands: Who thinks that there will be a significant reduction in private security operations in Afghanistan by January 1st? Yeah, me too.

Karzai’s position is entirely understandable. It’s bad enough to have foreign armies running around the country you rule, acting autonomously and without even discussing their plans and operations with you – but after all, they are pretty much the only force keeping you in power so in the end it’s a worthwhile trade-off. But the private contractors are unaccountable either to the Afghan political or military leadership, or even to a large degree to the American and NATO forces that contract for their services. Heavily armed (often in direct contravention of orders and contractual agreements) and answerable to their corporate offices, and to a lesser degree their clients, they are not only widely loathed by the civilians they encounter, but their actions are often counterproductive to the goals and mission of the military forces in theater.

But realistically, the US and NATO are not going to allocate their resources to convoy and road security, and the State Department and other civilian agencies are not going to be able to operate if they can only draw on US forces for operational security. So Karzai makes his stand, everyone nods gravely and agrees that this is something that should happen, and then they go back and continue to plan their operations based on the availability of 40,000 or so armed contractors. The closest Karzai will get to a concession is some sort of euphemistic re-designation of private security contractors or their employers in order to comply with the verbiage in the order while retaining the status quo.

And, of course, the Afghan President will know better than to publicly complain. He knows Afghanistan is not his country to rule, and he knows his role and where his office fits in the chain of command. So he’ll continue to make the best of a bad situation, reaping the benefits of his position for his friends and family, letting the various Generals, Secretaries and Ministers squabble over the day to day governance of his country. If the foreign forces leave, he’ll ‘retire’ somewhere in Europe or the mid-east and write his memoirs, but for at least a few more years it’s business as usual, even if he is ultimately powerless.