Inconclusive election results in Afghanistan, disappointing voter turnout and the prospect of rising ethnic tensions and political turmoil are new roadblocks to the Obama administration's plan to turn around a backsliding war.
The U.S. had hoped the national voting, run by Afghans themselves with heavy international backing, would demonstrate that stability was within reach in Afghanistan and worth the steep price in dollars, time and American combat deaths.
Instead, the presidential election last week highlighted old problems and pointed to disturbing new challenges, including the prospect of political paralysis and parochial squabbling while U.S. combat deaths soar.
First, it is a little early to be painting pictures of reverses.
Second, is the alternative no voting? That hardly seems to be a solution to a "failure" to vote in the numbers and manner we'd like.
The problem isn't voting or the way the Afghans are voting. The problem is we're having them vote for the wrong things.
We shouldn't be trying to compel Afghans to vote for a strong central government when Afghanistan just isn't unified enough for that. Worse, with so much power allocated to the central government, it gives locals more incentive to fight hard for victory--or use extra-legal means to achieve a share of that power.
If the national government had limited powers, nobody would get too upset about the results of the national election and worry too much about how many of the people in their province voted. As long as the provincial election was the most important for their daily lives, it wouldn't matter as much if their turn out was 90% or 20% since at least only locals--and not distant foreigners from other provinces--would be voting and determining their futures.
The elections may yet turn out fine. But we're taking a needless gamble having the voting done this way. We should aim for a confederacy with strong local authority with a national government having limited powers.
Trying to make Afghans fit into a modern nation state will indeed place our objectives in jeapordy.
