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.

-------------------------

The Afghan president must set up a "major crimes tribunal" and an anti-corruption commission, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says.

She told ABC television that Hamid Karzai "can do better".

The Afghan leader - recently re-elected in a poll marred by fraud allegations - has come under growing Western pressure to deal with corruption.

One of Mr Karzai's spokesmen insisted the Afghan leader's administration was "serious" about tackling corruption.

The American ambassador in Kabul has warned against a US troop surge unless Mr Karzai takes action against corruption.

------------------------

This is likely to make the few people in the know laugh their head off...

Karzai reelection campaign was mostly financed by warlords and drug lords while Abdullah Abdullah was mostly finance by American dosh (possibly CIA cash funds) while Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai the wise-guy who could really solve Afghanistan woes got nowhere with 100 per cent US donations... Hey, my assumptions here may be wrong so don't quote me...

Afghanistan is at a "critical moment" as Hamid Karzai prepares to be sworn in for a second term, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.

Speaking in Kabul, Mrs Clinton said there was a "window of opportunity" for President Karzai to demonstrate he was going to improve Afghans' lives.

Mr Karzai was declared the winner after an election tainted by allegations of widespread fraud.

He has come under growing pressure from Western officials to tackle corruption.

Afghanistan's beleaguered President Hamid Karzai makes his inauguration speech tomorrow, acutely aware that his disgruntled international backers will be poring over it for signs that he intends to mend his ways. But while he may carry out a cull of ministers, diplomats are expecting them to be minor sacrificial lambs rather than the worst offenders.

see toon at top...

Today, President Hamid Karzai will be inaugurated in front of an audience of foreign dignitaries. But appearing on Afghan television, he is a little less statesmanlike. The incessant bickering, it seems, has grown too much, and Mr Karzai snaps: instead of calmly swearing an oath to his country, he is trying to strangle the US ambassador, jowl quivering next to spit-flecked jowl. A UN official gazes placidly at the unfolding chaos but luckily there's someone here with a little more nerve. "Shut up," screams a cross-dressing interpreter. It's not exactly The Daily Show, but this is political satire, Afghan style.

Zang-e-Khatar ("Alarm Bell"), is a popular TV show in Afghanistan that has been thriving on the country's political tribulations. It receives primetime billing – 9pm every Wednesday – and almost everyone with a TV seems to have seen an episode.

The Afghan government could fall within weeks if Nato pulled out troops now, David Miliband warned today as he urged British opponents of the war to give the fight to rebuild the country more time.

In an interview with the Guardian at the end of a visit to Kabul for the presidential inauguration of Hamid Karzai, the foreign secretary said: "If international forces leave, you can choose a time – five minutes, 24 hours or seven days – but the insurgent forces will overrun those forces that are prepared to put up resistance and we would be back to square one."

At the end of a day spent visiting British troops and officials at the headquarters of the international military effort, Miliband said that Afghans were "sad that they need anyone, but they are passionate that my goodness they do – because if we weren't here their country would be rolled over".

He agreed that public anxiety about the war is growing in Britain as a result of rising casualties. "Afghanistan wasn't on the front pages until the last six months for obvious reasons," he said. "Now for tragic reasons there is a lot of interest. What we have to do is explain to people that the costs of staying are real but they are less than the costs of leaving."

--------------------

see toon at top...

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

When there is no good solution to a problem, a president has three options: to avoid the problem, to pick the least bad of the available options, or to mix and match among the proposed solutions and minimize the long-term damage any decision will cause.

President Obama is soon likely to settle on something closest to the third approach regarding Afghanistan. This will make no one very happy. Yet it might be the least dangerous choice.

No one would choose to start from where we are now in Afghanistan. We shouldn't have put this war on the back burner for so long, and we should have dealt much earlier with the debilitating deficiencies of President Hamid Karzai's government. But Obama can change none of this. And unlike enthusiasts for an all-out counterinsurgency strategy, Obama knows he has to make a decision that's sustainable over the long run, which means taking into account domestic economic and political realities.

One of these is the weariness over a truth that foreign policy analyst Andrew Bacevich put more plainly than most: "that permanent war has become the de facto policy of the United States." Americans have always been willing to battle terrorists. What they did not count on -- and were not led to expect when the Bush administration committed troops to Afghanistan and then to Iraq -- were two long, violent, indefinite occupations costing thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.