The Only Way To Win Is Not To Play

The political problems in Afghanistan just got a whole lot worse this morning as opposition candidate Abdullah Abdullah has dropped out of next week's presidential runoff election, stating that the Nov. 7th contest will also be fixed by Hamid Karzai's followers.

"I want this to be an example for the future so that no one again tries to use fraud to abuse the rights of the Afghan people," Abdullah said at an emotional news conference announcing his decision.

President Hamid Karzai agreed to the runoff, set for Saturday, after he claimed victory in the first ballot in August. A review by a U.N.-backed panel of election monitors threw out nearly one-third of his votes, citing fraud. The result left Karzai short of the 50 percent-plus-one needed to avoid a runoff.

Abdullah had called for the resignations of top election officials and politicians to avert electoral fraud in the runoff. He argued that the commissioners, who are hired by Karzai, cannot be impartial.

But that request was not met, he said Sunday, and he did not believe a transparent election was possible.

"I spoke to Karzai about the Independent Election Commission abusing its powers, but he denied it and refused to dismiss them," he said.

The election commission, which denied any wrongdoing, slammed the candidate's accusations. Unless Abdullah has proof of such bias, he is in no position to ask any Afghan official to step down, said Azizullah Lodin, IEC president.

Abdullah did not address any plans to be part of a coalition government, which the election commission said Saturday was unconstitutional.

"I will not focus on that," he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour, adding that his goal was to contribute to a better Afghanistan in whatever capacity he was in. He urged his supporters to remain calm and not take to the streets in protest.

"I will be available to serve country," he said. "I am in consultations with followers ... a movement for change will be there and I will lead that movement."

If you thought political stability in Afghanistan was a problem before, it's going to get exponentially worse as long as Abdullah can keep saying that Karzai is leading a Potemkin village of US puppets. That means our troops will be at risk by being in Afghanistan, and adding more troops will only make Abdullah's point painfully clear to the Afghan people.

It's been eight years now. What have we accomplished in Afghanistan? The GOP will tell you the answer is another decade or two to iron out the kinks. We can't afford it financially, morally, or strategically. Neither can Afghanistan.

What will Obama do? The Karzai government will never have any legitimacy now. And that means there is no military solution.

Of course, there never was one.