Word: runoff
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...that a runoff is finally in the works in Afghanistan (for an election they held in August!), the Obama administration will have to make up its mind in the next several weeks on the recommendations of the McChrystal Report, which argues for sending in 40,000 or more additional soldiers. The choice comes down to whether America wants to focus on counter-terror operations—keeping troop levels constant and instead using target bombs and drones to prevent al-Qaeda from fully reconstituting—or counter insurgency, which is what we did in Iraq and involves...
...been resolved, because the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy depends on defending a legitimate government. But the Afghan electoral commission's ruling that, after fraudulent ballots were discarded, Karzai had failed to win an outright majority in the first round of voting means that he'll have to face a runoff race against his closest challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah...
...government as the foundation of U.S. counterinsurgency strategy, the key flaw of Afghanistan's August election was not the widespread ballot fraud; it was the fact that almost 3 out of 4 voters didn't show up at the polls because of the Taliban security threat. So, while a runoff election might satisfy the fraud complaints, it won't make the resulting government much more representative unless millions more voters show up at the polls this time. But the deteriorating security situation and limits of the appeal of both candidates give little reason to expect that the rerun would...
...What's more, despite the findings of the electoral commission, there's widespread doubt in Kabul over whether a runoff vote will actually proceed. A power-sharing deal between Karzai and Abdullah is considered the much more likely outcome. But in reality, the manner in which the electoral stalemate is resolved doesn't substantially alter the basic choice facing Obama: either send tens of thousands more U.S. troops, which U.S. commander General Stan McChrystal says are necessary simply to halt the Taliban's advance, or draw down to a policing operation against al-Qaeda and abandon the goal of defeating...
...Zimbabwe rather than what they are. Power in the country comes from guns and soldiers, as Mugabe demonstrated when he unleashed his security forces on MDC supporters after his party lost the March 2008 general election, killing scores. (Tsvangirai responded to the violence by first pulling out of the runoff election, and then by accepting in February a junior role in a power-sharing government...