Afghanistan: Victory (for a crooked, corrupt and discredited government) (UK Independent)

[Jackeens]

Special report by Patrick Cockburn

The election in Afghanistan has turned into a disaster for all who promoted it. Hamid Karzai has been declared re-elected as President of the country for the next five years though his allies inside and outside Afghanistan know that he owes his success to open fraud. Instead of increasing his government's legitimacy, the poll has further de-legitimised it.

From Mr Karzai's point of view he won through at the end and showed that nobody is strong enough to get rid of him. For the US President, Barack Obama, the election has no silver lining. It has left him poised to send tens of thousands more US troops to fight a war in defence of one of the world's most crooked, corrupt and discredited governments. "It is not that the Taliban is so strong, but the government is so weak," was a common saying among Afghans before the election. This will be even truer in future.

The US and its allies may now push for a national unity government between Mr Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, his main rival for the presidency. This might look good on paper, or at least better than the alternative of Mr Karzai ruling alone. But enforced unity between men who detest each other will institutionalise divisions. Its value will largely be in terms of propaganda for external consumption.

On 4 November 2008, when Mr Obama won the US election, he must have believed he had been right to take a soft line on Iraq and a hard one on Afghanistan. The former looked much the more dangerous place. Just 12 months later he is discovering that the reverse is true and Afghanistan is the biggest foreign policy problem facing the US. It is a more dangerous place for the US and its allies than Iraq ever was.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/victory-for-a-crooked-corrupt-and-discredited-government-1813614.html