Karzai's Triumph Puts U.S. on the Spot

(Thumbnail image from UN Photo)

"We declared that Mr. Hamid Karzai [who] got the majority of votes in the first round and he's the only candidate for the second round of election of Afghanistan in 2009, has been declared as the elected president of Afghanistan." (Footage from BBC News)

Now that Afghan presidential candidate Dr. Abdullah Abdullah dropped out of the runoff election, President Hamid Karzai will lead the country for another five years.

But Karzai is accused of widespread election fraud and is seen by many as the leader of a corrupt and illegitimate government.

We’re taking a look at what the newest developments in Afghanistan mean, with perspectives from CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.   

CNN reports that while election officials declared President Karzai the winner, Afghan citizens are still sharply divided and dubious about another Karzai term.

“He got about 49.67 percent of the vote, whereas Dr. Abdullah Abdullah got somewhere around 30 percent, so clearly he was in the lead there.  So, they’re happy with the decision.  But then of course you have people who wanted Dr. Abdullah Abdullah to have a chance and wanted basically, a new president and new power structure here, and are upset with all of this, saying that this is just another case of fraud.”

Even though the U.S. government formally congratulated Karzai on his win, on MSNBC, hosts of the "Morning Joe" show speculate that having an ally under a cloud of suspicion puts the U.S. in a very difficult spot.

“Karzai is going to serve another term (Here we go!) and that, I suspect, complicates things a great deal for President Obama.  I mean, I know the White House says it doesn’t, but I can’t imagine how it wouldn’t.  I know Karzai’s pretty high on Biden’s enemies list cause Biden’s been calling him out for a very long time on how corrupt he is and basically says he’s got to straighten up.  This makes things more complicated without a doubt.”

FOX News correspondent Dana Lewis reports that although canceling the runoff saves money and eliminates the fears of widespread violence at polling places, propping up an unsteady Karzai government may end up strengthening the insurgency.

“In the short-term, yes, but in the long-term certainly the Taliban’s long range target is anything to the do with the stability of the government.  So, that security threat doesn’t end.

FOX News also weighed in on how Karzai’s re-election will affect President Obama’s decision on Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for 40,000 more American troops.  

“Perhaps they will move that up, and perhaps now they will not wait until the eleventh day of the eleventh month before they announce what they will do regarding a surge in Afghanistan... Or they could wait until the President comes back from his trip to the Far East.  Because now they don’t have the impending, you see before when they were going to have that election on Nov. 7 and he was leaving on Nov. 11, he was almost forced to into a box to have to make the decision before he went off on a long trip.  But now, now that this election just stands and there is no rerun of the election, it will interesting to see if they push off the decision until he comes back."

So what do you think? Will the Karzai election embolden the Taliban and lead to a more unstable government? Or is this an opportunity to correct a corrupt system and get Afghanistan on track?