History just has a way of kicking Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in the teeth. There the 2004 Democratic nominee was, in Kabul, two weeks ago, securing President Hamid Karzai’s acquiescence to a runoff election, a very big diplomatic feat. Now challenger Abdullah Abdullah has withdrawn; the runoff is off; More…
If you saw me on al-Jazeera fifteen minutes ago making this point, sorry for repeating myself. But if not: Robert Gibbs said in his White House press conference today that the Obama strategy review for Afghanistan will go on — a troop decision is apparently still weeks away — More…
I asked Peter Galbraith, the deputy head of the United Nations’ mission to Afghanistan who was deposed for supporting a more rigorous U.N. role in opposing vote fraud in the August 20 elections, what he thought about Abdullah Abdullah’s withdrawal from the runoff. “Abdullah did the right thing,” he More…
Saying it was in the “best interest” of his supporters, Abdullah Abdullah, the main challenger to President Hamid Karzai, announced Sunday that he was pulling out of a runoff election scheduled for this week. It is unknown right now if the election will occur, but Abdullah said that he was More…
CNN is reporting that a “Western source close to the Afghan leadership” is saying talks for next week’s runoff election between Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah have broken down and over the weekend Abdullah will drop out. Christiane Amanpour’s only other source in the piece is Zalmay Khalilzad, the More…
Tell me if this makes sense to you. During the Aug. 20 Afghan presidential election, thousands of polling stations either didn’t open to the public or didn’t host election monitors, which allowed election fraud to become so widespread that a full one-third of the votes for incumbent president Hamid Karzai More…
Just released, from the Secretary of State:
Afghanistan has been through a rough and contentious election. The bravery, patience, and resilience of the Afghan people has been on display since election day, when so many of them went to the polls in the face of threats and intimidation. And
So about the meaning of those two statements on the Afghan presidential runoff from President Obama and Prime Minister Brown. I note Marc Ambinder’s curtain-raiser about the ongoing Obama strategy review for the war:
On Sunday, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel caught [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates by
Just released by the British embassy. Coordinated with the Obama statement?
President Karzai has just made an important statement to the people of Afghanistan.
It is vital that the new Afghan Government has legitimacy in the eyes of its people.
Ambassador Peter Galbraith, recently sacked from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan over his rejection of the mission’s stance on fraud in the Afghan presidential election, takes issue with spokesman Farhan Haq’s statement to me that Galbraith’s firing “takes the focus away” from dealing with election fraud. Haq’s statement is More…
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