Afghan President Hamid Karzai has has agreed to a second round of presidential elections.

"The run-off will be held on 7th November between the president and his main rival Abdullah Abdullah."

The Electoral Complaints Commission has discounted ballots from 210 polling stations in August. In order to prevent a repeat or irregularities in November, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is seeking to get more than half the top officials involved in August's election be replaced. So the election can be seen as credible and transparent[Source BBC]

Will Sec Gen Ban succeed in the replacements?

If so will it make any difference?

Given that the White House has said They won't commit to more troops untill they have a real partner in Afghanistan.

If Karzai wins will this be justification the US needs to boost troop numbers.

Will a second round bring stability to the country?

Will this be a test of Obama's appropriateness to receiving the the peace prize?

Do you have any solutions?

As said recently on AlJazeera, when Auntie Sam first went in to do regime change on the Taliban, they did so with a bunch of planes, about 300 special service people and a whole lot of Afghanis who welcomed them as their honorable partners who previously had helped them cast out the Ruskies.

Since then, with the wholesale slaughter of great swathes of the civilian population with reckless bombing campaigns and, amongst other depravities, the long term defilement of the environment and its dwellers with enrichment waste munitions, the population has turned on them in preference of the insurgents.

It is over and now we can but look forward to ongoing escalation.

It is an issue of credibility.

If the president cannot be seen to be legitimately elected, then the rest of the world will see him as a despot and all support will evaporate.

Already the Taliban are getting political advantage and recruits from it.

If the next round is also rigged, the world will pull out, the warlords will rule again.

I first thought this was about camel racing.....

reading the first posts... now I am sure it is

Dear Examinator,

The British followed by the Russians followed by the UN
have not succeeded in an alien culture with inhospitable
terrain to win the hearts of people by beating
them into submission. The only choice no matter
what the outcome of the election is to set a
time-table of training the local militias and
leave the region to its own determination.

Historically, the region has survived for centuries
and no amount of interference seems to have altered
the mind-set of those that control the tribes.

Nothing will change unless the people themselves
want change. It has to start at the village level,
the tribal level, expanding to the regional level,
and hopefully the national level.

Col,
Was that a funny? or were you exercising your myopic ignorance?

Foxy,
I agree it's political quick sand.
The international problems aren't so much the locals per se.
- Rather that 60-70 of the world's heroine comes from there and the Warlords aren't above dealing in drugs.
- Then there's the Taliban a minority imposing their extreme views on the urbanites (majority) who don't want it (women etc)
Keep in mind bad order is better than no order is the view of many of the powerless peasants.
- Then there's the environment that protects Al Kieda and the threat to the world the combinations sends out.

I think the reasons for the failures is that each has come as conqueror rather than a on their terms friend. Military alone won't do it. The will must come from the people. I think the strategy is fatally flawed because it doesn't deal with the people on their terms instead of tying to replicate western style quasi democracy

I'm surprised the UN/ NATO aren't using a pincer movement from the Other side of the Afghan border in concert with Pakistan's current actions.