Whew, crisis averted

Ladies and gentlemen we have averted a crisis. Hamid Karzai has accepted the results of the UN's Electoral Complaints Commission and will consent to a second round of voting. That means we get to add 40,000-70,000 news troops on the ground! Oh and something about democracy, constitutional something something, rule of law, and blah blah blah. 40,000-70,000 more troops!

Afghanistan will hold a second round of voting on 7 November after an election panel reluctantly accepted that massive fraud took place in August's poll, which President Hamid Karzai was declared to have won.
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The US senator John Kerry, who was in Kabul for some diplomatic arm-twisting, sought to put the best spin on what has been a chaotic election process. Praising Karzai for his "great leadership", Kerry told reporters: "A great moment of uncertainty has been transformed into a time of great opportunity.
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"It was feared that Karzai was preparing to reject the UN Electoral Complaints Commission's (ECC) findings of fraud, which had the effect of cutting his total by 954,526 votes and reducing his percentage of the vote from 55% to 48.3%.

Yeah John, nothing says "great leadership" like finally relenting in your opposition to the multitude on international election agencies and diplomats pointing out, with specific detail and with reams of evidence, specifically how you rigged your election to the tune of a million votes. Karzai is the new Churchill. And that "great opportunity", is that for us to escalate the war without it looking like we support a total despot or for Afghanistan to move forward with only a largely compromised leader who is more and more distrusted by the non-Pashtun ethnic groups in the country?

At least it'll remove all the uncomfortable silences from the track we used to be on, where we talk about not escalating until we do a "careful assessment" of the Afghan government...and then escalate anyway while Karzai refuses to allow a new election. Now we get to say "Sure he rigged an election, but when everyone pointed it out he admitted it and allowed the second round of voting to commence" and proceed with moving more troops in. I know that doesn't sound good, but you just made the tiny mistake of thinking about it. Don't concentrate so much on the "rigged an election part" and focus more on the "allowed the second round" part. Still don't think about it too hard, just bathe in the light of the "allow" and start to feel good about 40,000-70,000 more troops in Afghanistan. No, I can see you thought about it again, I saw that ugly look on your face. Stop. "Allow", "great leadership", "great opportunity", happy thoughts, good feelings.