(Thumbnail image from UN Photo)

“Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai was sworn in this morning for another five-year term and during his inauguration address Karzai said Afghanistan’s security forces should be able to take control of the country in three to five years. He also addressed U.S. concerns over corruption in his government, saying corrupt officials should be tried and prosecuted.” (Today Show)

Hamid Karzai promises to improve the administration, but the media are skeptical why he hasn’t done so already in the past eight years of his administration.

We’re looking at perspectives from Al Jazeera English, FOX News, CNN, MSNBC and BBC News.

Let’s start with Al Jazeera English. Correspondent David Chater described the atmosphere in Kabul on the inauguration day.

“Opinions differed about what the next five years might hold after listening to their president’s speech. ‘In my point the past five years government was not good, and the future government will also be not successful, and I don’t think that there will be peace in the next five years.’”

Also in Kabul, FOX News reporter Greg Palkot highlights an unpromising statistic.

“President Karzai’s Afghanistan hit a new low this week. Of the 180 nations it surveyed, the Transparent International Watchdog Group named Afghanistan the second most corrupt in the world, the only one worse - Somalia.”

CNN’s Jill Dougherty also weighs in with skepticism, considering his political past.

“Some experts doubt President Karzai really will crack down on corruption.  They say he owes his political success to warlords and others, and cutting them off could be political suicide.”

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Tina Brown discusses an article from “The Daily Beast.” In it, the writer talks about how Karzai has changed.

“She talks about the extraordinary change in this man since he’s been president because she says you know, he is so isolated now at this point. This was a guy who was very Westernized and loved to read, you know, Summerset Norm novels and walk around in these jeans and he’s pretty much now imprisoned in this palace, he can only get out now and walk around in his little cell almost out in the garden, because the security around him is so intense.”

Finally, BBC News interviews a radio journalist in Afghanistan who supports Karzai’s new term.

“We Afghan people got a new hope in the last eight years. We became alive, we found communication with the world, we are able to rebuild our education system and have the freedom to elect our government.”
“He was able to do all those things and we know well that whatever he did for the Afghan nation, nobody else did before him.”

So will Hamid Karzai’s inauguration inspire him to start fighting corruption?

Writer: Lauren Styler

Producer: Erika Roberts