After Hamid Karzai's latest act, appointing all the members of the electoral commission so that in future it won't do troubling things like point out his widespread involvement in voting fraud, any attempt to defend NATO policy in Afghanistan on the grounds of democracy promotion sounds fairly stale. Does anyone remember those justifications circulated at the time of the original invasion - that by overthrowing the Taliban we'd be able to secure rights for women living behind the burkah? How quaint and outmoded they seem now.
"We were puzzled and disturbed last year when the Obama administration didn’t — or couldn’t — persuade Mr. Karzai to run a reasonably clean race," writes the New York Times. "Aren’t tens of thousands of American troops and billions of dollars in American aid enough leverage?" Well, no, unfortunately they're not. Karzai is no fool; he knows that politically and militarily the US is deeply exposed through its commitment to solving Afghanistan's problems, and that no president could deal with the domestic political fallout of straightforwardly giving up and going home. At this stage, like it or not, the Karzai government is the only game in town. The presence of US troops is no leverage when they're only there to meet self-interested commitments.
Think Of the Children
52 minutes ago
