So, Karzai's opponent dropped out of a planned re-voting in Afghanistan, and President Obama said they would need to drastically take action to stop corruption.
Guys, this is the "conditionality" I have been talking about for about the last 18 months. Maybe this time it will happen! Read the Reuters article below, and the second article below about the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown saying essentially the same thing.
From Reuters HEREObama to Karzai: Crack down on corruption
Mon Nov 2, 2009 6:17pm EST
By Ross Colvin
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama signaled on
Monday that Washington's support for Afghan leader Hamid Karzai would
come with more strings attached, including a demand he get much tougher
on rampant corruption.
Obama called Karzai to congratulate him on winning a second
five-year term after Afghan election officials scrapped a November 7
run-off vote. Karzai's only challenger, former foreign minister
Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew from the election on Sunday, citing doubts
about the fairness of the process.
"I emphasized that this has to be a point in time in which we write
a new chapter based on improved governance, a much more serious effort
to eradicate corruption (and) joint efforts to accelerate the training
of Afghan security forces," Obama said in the White House Oval Office.
Karzai's re-election capped weeks of political uncertainty that has
complicated Obama's efforts to revamp U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and
decide on a request by his top commander there for up to 40,000 more
troops to tackle deteriorating security.
But analysts said Obama now faced an uphill battle in convincing a
skeptical American public that Karzai deserved continued U.S. support,
after a fraud-riddled election that saw millions of ballots favoring
the Afghan leader thrown out.
"It is going to be harder to sell domestically. Arguably the most
consequential effect (of the election) has been here," said Stephen
Biddle, who helped advise U.S. Afghan commander General Stanley
McChrystal in a rethink of U.S. policy there.
"They (the administration) are definitely going to attach more
systematic strings to the thousands of things we do in Afghanistan
every day. They are going to insist on government reforms, without
which the campaign will fail," said Biddle, a military analyst.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs faced repeated questions at a
briefing on how Washington could work with Karzai when his legitimacy
had been so widely questioned after the tainted August vote.
"President Karzai has been declared the winner ... so obviously he
is the legitimate leader of the country," said Gibbs, without directly
addressing questions on whether the administration also saw him as
credible.
DEEDS NOT WORDS
In his comments later, Obama said Karzai had assured him that he
understood the importance of improving governance and stamping out
corruption, "but as I indicated to him, the proof is not going to be in
words, it is going to be in deeds."
Obama administration officials want Karzai to sign onto measures to
combat corruption. One option under discussion is creation of an
anti-corruption commission with the authority to go after top officials.
Washington is also ready to offer practical assistance to the next
Afghan government, such as sending more civilian advisers to ministries
to help improve services to wide swathes of the country, officials said.
Gibbs said Obama would announce his new strategy "in the next few
weeks." The timing had never been dependent on the outcome of the
election, he said, although administration officials had previously
suggested it was a factor.
A senior administration official told Reuters at the weekend that
Obama was not likely to announce his new strategy before he embarked on
a 10-day trip to Asia on November 11.
The cancellation of the run-off is both a concern and a blessing for Obama.
After U.S. troops suffered their bloodiest month in the
eight-year-old war in October, his administration would have been
reluctant to commit troops to police an election in which there was
only one candidate and which the Taliban had vowed to attack.
But it now has to work with a severely weakened leader whose
government is viewed by many Afghans as both corrupt and inept.
Relations between Karzai and Washington also soured after the
fraud-tainted August election and U.S. officials had to pressure the
Afghan president to stand in the run-off.
With the run-off now canceled, Obama is likely to come under more
pressure to make a decision soon on his strategy, although the White
House has said such an important policy shift requires careful
consideration.
Republicans have been particularly critical of Obama, saying he is
being overcautious. The House of Representatives Republican leader,
John Boehner, said the scrapping of the run-off had removed the
"pretext for delaying the decision on giving General McChrystal the
resources he needs to achieve our goals in Afghanistan."
There are some 67,000 U.S. troops in the country. (Writing by Ross Colvin; Additional reporting by Adam Entous, Caren Bohan and Steve Holland; Editing by Eric Walsh)
===========================================
Brown urges Karzai to unify Afghanistan, tackle corruption
(AFP)
–
9 hours ago
LONDON — Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged President Hamid Karzai
Monday to set out a "unifying programme" for Afghanistan and tackle
corruption after he was handed a second term in office, he said.
Brown
told lawmakers he had spoken to Karzai by phone after the Afghan poll
watchdog called off a one-man run-off which had threatened to descend
into farce, a decision welcomed by Britain.
They discussed "the importance of moving quickly to set out a unity programme for the future governance of Afghanistan.
"Afghanistan now needs new and urgent measures for tackling corruption, for strengthening local government," Brown said.
Karzai
had agreed that Afghanistan needs to strengthen its army and police
numbers to reduce the burden on troops from Britain and other countries
in the NATO-led international force, the prime minister added.
Britain
has 9,000 soldiers based in Afghanistan and is sending another 500,
despite growing questions over the deployment as the death toll rises.
A
British soldier was killed on Saturday by an explosion in violence-torn
Helmand province, taking the number of British deaths since the 2001
US-led invasion to 224.
On Sunday, Brown hailed opposition
candidate Abdullah Abdullah's decision to pull out of the presidential
election run-off, saying he had acted "in the interests of national
unity".
Brown said then he did not rule out Abdullah taking a role in a future unity government.
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