Abdullah Pulls out of Afghan Run-Off Election

Former Afghan foreign minister and presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah has decided not to contest next Sunday's run off election for the presidency. That means Hamid Karzai will get another term in office. One might think that is a good thing for the country and its supporters abroad. In fact, this is the worst of all possible election results; Dr. Abdullah is quitting because he believes the process to be flawed and unfair. This means that the legitimacy of the Karzai government remains in question.

In Sunday's edition of the Los Angeles Times, Peter Galbraith, an American who was fired from the United Nations' Afghanistan mission complaining it had covered up voter fraud, wrote: "In the week since the agreement, it has become clear that Karzai and his allies are determined to win the second round by any means possible, regardless of the cost to the country or the international military effort."

William Maley, an expert on Afghanistan politics at the Australian National University agreed, "There's a widespread but ill-grounded assumption that the Afghan government will be disposed to engage in reform under Western pressure. Right under the noses of the internationals, they have engaged in utterly shameless fraud and, in effect, they got away with it."

So, the West is now stuck with a regime that is noted for its corruption and that has wrecked whatever legitimacy is might have had. It is a case of having to make do. Sue Pleming of Reuters reported, "'There is no way you can bypass him (Karzai) but we want to target those institutions and interlocutors who are trying to fight corruption,' said a senior US official. 'If we can strengthen people who are trying to stamp out corruption then we will be able to make a difference on the ground,' added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the issue is sensitive."

At this stage, the Obama administration needs to consider cutting its losses with the Karzai government. Sending 40,000 more Americans to prop this regime up is folly. The mission needs to refocus of taking Al Qaeda apart. If President Karzai is part of that solution, that's fine. If he isn't, there is no need to keep him in power. Let the Afghans fight and die to keep him in power, if they will. If they won't, then letting him go down is merely bowing to the inevitable.

While it would be wonderful to see Afghanistan become a developed state in which all of its citizens are free to achieve their full potential living in peace and security, that is not an option that the West can impose by force. Trying to do so will only waste blood and money. In the meanwhile, Usama bin Laden is still a free man. It's time for the mission to creep back to hunting him down.

© Copyright 2009 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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