Afghanistan: Now A Complete Mess

Well, now after having forced Hamid Karzai to a run-off he didn't want. The U.S has let Afghanistan fall apart by not making sure that Dr. Abdullah Abdullah competes in the run-off election. I had predicted that Dr. Abdullah would have won a run-off but now he won't even participate, which is a shame for Afghanistan and its "democracy." This bet was always a longshot but I figured that Abdullah might have been able to change the political situation due to Karzai's incompetence and fraud. Which is what I thought the U.S and its allies wanted.

Here is a rundown of the situation by the Christian Science Monitor.

NEW DELHI - The challenger to Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced Sunday that he is withdrawing from the Nov. 7 runoff election, casting deeper doubts about the foundations of support for the next government in Afghanistan as well as the ability of the international community to influence it.

Abdullah Abdullah said he would not participate in the runoff because a "transparent election is not possible." But he did not call for a boycott of the vote.

Before dropping out, Dr. Abdullah lobbied unsuccessfully for a number of changes to the election process aimed at curbing the widespread fraud seen in the first round. He called for the replacement of several of Mr. Karzai's top appointees within the country's election commission and a decrease in polling centers in areas where insecurity prevented oversight. Instead, the commission sacked only lower-level workers and actually increased the number of polling centers....

The prospect of a less legitimate government that's less disposed to reform complicates the ongoing debate over whether to send more troops to Afghanistan on a counterinsurgency mission. Even the chief proponent of the strategic shift, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, admits that more troops won't help if governance doesn't improve.

Afghan supporters of Karzai point out that the president is on record promising that he will crack down on government corruption and the illegal narcotics trade.

"Hopefully he will honor his word," says Khalid Pashtoon, a Member of Parliament from Kandahar. "If not, we will have the same circumstances we had in the last five years."

Mr. Pashtoon, however, expressed more urgent concern not about the next five years, but the next five days. In that time it will become clear how Abdullah's supporters react to his withdrawal.