Election Chaos in Afghanistan: Karzai's Fraudulent Victory Will Plague Obama

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Obama is caught in a trap that he is going to have great difficulty freeing himself from. In the coming weeks, he is expected to present his new plan for Afghanistan. Once again people are expecting to see the light at the end of the tunnel: the withdrawal of US troops. Before that can happen, though, the country must be stabilized. That's why Obama wants to send several thousand additional soldiers to Afghanistan. But the current chaos surrounding the election farce will merely serve to strengthen skeptics, who would like to see a shift in course to make this into a purely anti-terrorism operation and who are calling for an end to the American dream of rebuilding Afghanistan.

For its part, Obama's team is exercising caution. Karzai, they say, must prove through the work of his government in the coming months that he wants a new start. But it remains a mystery how Washington will succeed in getting him to move. Two key figures in US politics -- special envoy Richard Holbrooke and Vice President Joe Biden -- have already sparred so heavily with Karzai that they are hardly welcome in the presidential palace in Kabul. It remains unclear who can apply the necessary pressure on Karzai.

With its difficult partner in Kabul, even the West's watered-down goals in Afghanistan seem hardly attainable. Both politicians and military officials are asking how are we supposed to build a stable army if the government can't do its job properly, and soldiers in most cases don't even get their pay? How can financial aid from the West truly help the Afghan people if it isn't distributed properly by the corrupt and, in part, criminal government and public administrative bodies?

Disastrous Situation

The United States isn't the only country left perplexed by the election. In Germany, the mandate for the deployment of the Bundeswehr, the country's armed forces, in Afghanistan must be renewed by parliament in December. Members of parliament are viewing the latest developments with concern. The next government must also prepare for the fact that Chancellor Angela Merkel's former government coalition partner, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), is likely to take a far more critical tone in the future debate over Afghanistan. The once broad majority in parliament in favor of the Afghanistan mandate is now anything but a given.

The statements made so far by the new German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), sound a bit like the litanies of his predecessor in the office, the SPD's Frank-Walter Steinmeier. After Abdullah's withdrawal, Westerwelle -- who is still a novice on international terrain -- said Karzai must become a president with legitimacy and that he must pursue reconciliation with his domestic opponents. He must bring the different camps together and become a president of all the Afghan people, Westerwelle said. Of course, the new foreign minister was unable to say how this was supposed to happen. In that sense, he is completely on the same page as his international counterparts, who are all equally helpless.

Disastrous as the situation already is, Karzai will soon deliver the icing on the cake. At the very latest, this will happen when the new president presents the names of the members of his new cabinet -- names which are unlikely to please the West. In order to secure a majority, Karzai has recruited several brutal warlords to his team, including the notorious Mohammed Fahim. From a Western point of view, Fahim should be answering to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. In Kabul, though, he's poised to become vice president.

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• Part 1: Karzai's Fraudulent Victory Will Plague Obama
• Part 2: Thousands of Soldiers for an Undemocratic Regime?