Chaos after election results were finally reported at the national government level in Afghanistan is not helpful to settling that place down with no room for jihadis to roam and threaten the West:
Abdullah Abdullah, the loser in the September presidential election insists he is the legitimate president and is issuing orders to government officials who are caught in the middle of a power struggle between the election winner, the Taliban and the United States.
There is much more on the divisions within Afghanistan, and our friends the Pakistanis.
Back when the Afghanistan surge was a fleeting gleam in Obama's eye, I wanted a post-surge Afghanistan to be one that recognizes that there is no such thing as a national Afghan society:
The end result in Afghanistan, if all goes well, will be a nominal national government that controls the capital region and reigns but does not rule local tribes and which actually helps the locals a bit rather than sucking resources from the locals, who in turn do not make trouble for the central government or allow their areas to be used by jihadis to plan attacks on the West.
Yet we persist in thinking the Westphalian system applies to Afghanistan. And our frenemies the Pakistanis are an obstacle, of course. Let's remember why we went there while we try to leave.
UPDATE: I've mentioned before that "Afghanistan" is merely a geographic term.
