Nobody wins at all in having Afghanistan runoff election

If the runoff is tainted, the divisions within the Afghan political class will become even deeper (hard as that is to imagine), the government will lose even more respect among Afghans (also hard to imagine), the Taliban will be delighted, and the U.S. will have an even more difficult time doing what the Obama administration seems confident it can do: creating viable institutions of governance in Afghanistan.

Then there's the matter of making sure voters don't get killed while voting. Even now, the combination of Afghan police and troops and American and allied forces is unable to stem the tide of Taliban-generated violence. That is precisely why Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, has asked for 40,000 additional troops.

It's a sure bet that the Taliban, true to form, will warn voters to stay at home during the vote on pain of death, and try to kill those who are not intimidated. It has become a formidable force and is no longer confined to its Pashtun strongholds in the south and east. This raises the question of how the country can be made safe enough to ensure a reasonable turnout.

A vote in which few take part and many that do are killed or maimed will hardly enable American soldiers to convince ordinary Afghans that they are capable of protecting them from the Taliban. But winning the confidence of Afghans on this very point is pivotal to McChrystal's strategy.

What about a surprising outcome: a fair vote that is won by Abdullah?

That denouement would cashier the Karzai government for sure, but it would also make an old problem much worse. Abdullah is a Tajik, and tensions among Tajiks, Pashtuns, Uzbeks and Hazaras have long been part of Afghanistan's politics. The Pashtuns have dominated the country's politics (Karzai is a Pashtun and the Taliban is overwhelmingly Pashtun) and will not meekly hand over the reins of power — the stakes are too high. Instead, they will resist, and Afghanistan's ethnic divisions will deepen.

The Obama administration takes umbrage when critics charge that it is engaged in nation-building in Afghanistan. But that is exactly the mission that it (and those on the right who call for a bigger U.S. role in Afghanistan) has embarked on, whether it knows it or not.

And although a runoff election will be hailed as a political victory by the White House, it will not make this enterprise any easier.

Menon is a professor of international relations at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

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