In Afghanistan this morning, officials have canceled the run-off election scheduled for this Saturday, declaring Hamid Karzai the winner after his opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, said he would not participate in the re-vote.
What does this mean in terms of the calculation that President Obama is working with in deciding troop levels in that country?
Well, apparently not much. Yesterday on CBS's Face the Nation, White House strategist David Axelrod said "Every poll that had been taken there suggested that he was likely to be defeated anyway, so we are going to deal with the government that is there.” True. But members of the administration (always anonymous) have also been badmouthing Karzai in published reports about Afghanistan for awhile now.
Meanwhile, foreign service officer Matthew Hoh, who resigned in protest over U.S. policy in Afghanistan, spoke this morning's on NBC's Today Show.
He also spoke for a longer duration on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" yesterday.
Hoh has said (among other things ) that the Afghan people view U.S. troops as occupiers and that it makes no sense to carry on.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2009.