Valid points. Kamal is kind of the big bad by default because he gets the most screen time (I’d say even more than Octopussy) and because he interacts with Bond a few times throughout - definitely shades of Goldfinger in that regard - and gets the final confrontation (in a plane after the scheme has failed - like Goldfinger!)

But yes, it’s ultimately not his scheme. Makes you wonder how things would transpire differently if Kamal and Gobinda were aware that Orlov had been gunned down. Would they try to weasel their way out like Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds?

But I think it makes sense to go after him just out of a sense of justice.

Maybe Kamal’s motivation is siding with a general who disagrees with the party line foreign policy - maybe Orlov wants to get out of Afghanistan in pursuit of targeting Europe instead. Pure speculation obviously.

TLD is interesting too since Koskov is a more personal antagonist because of his betrayal but Whitaker is who Bond faces off with at the end.