Free Iran:  Is this why American soldiers are fighting and dying for?  Is this why America is spending hundreds of billions of dollars for?  Another corrupt, incompetent despot?  When will we recognize that we need an Iranian-people centric Middle East policy?  Please see this story as well about the disaster that is Afghanistan.

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG

KABUL—Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in a rambling speech Thursday, charged Western officials and embassies with fraud in last summer’s presidential election, singling out two officials who were most outspoken about ballot-stuffing on the president’s behalf.

Mr. Karzai accused “foreign embassies” of trying to bribe members of Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission with offers of cash and armored vehicles if they delayed results of the vote to give Western diplomats time to force the president to form a coalition with his rivals.

At one point, Mr. Karzai claimed, the then-deputy chief of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith, threatened to kill a member of the IEC, telling the man he would “dig his grave with his own hands.”

Mr. Galbraith couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. The IEC declined to comment.

A U.N.-led watchdog threw out nearly a million votes cast for Mr. Karzai as fraudulent last year, ordering a runoff election. The runoff didn’t take place because the runner-up candidate withdrew from the race, saying he couldn’t trust the IEC, which was appointed by Mr. Karzai. The Afghan president has since issued a decree stripping the U.N. of its power to supervise elections here.

Mr. Karzai’s remarks, in a meeting with IEC workers ahead of a parliamentary election slated for September, were the latest outburst from a leader who over the past nine years has earned a reputation among his Western backers as deeply unpredictable.

As a Western diplomat put it: “One moment he’s playing the statesman,” as he did earlier in the week when President Barack Obama visited Kabul. “Then he turns around and he starts playing to the crowd.”

While Mr. Karzai has seen his popularity and credibility suffer in the wake of the vote, there is also widespread disenchantment among Afghans with the West, which many view as enabling the government’s corruption and doing little to rebuild Afghanistan.

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Daily Star: Afghanistan will be lost without more honest governance

…Since his London speech, Karzai has actively opposed efforts to attack official corruption, sought to appoint warlords to his Cabinet, failed to promote civil society, and weakened processes aimed at increasing the representation of women in Parliament.

To make matters worse, Karzai issued a decree on February 13 permitting him to appoint all of the ECC’s members. The measure was clearly designed to strengthen the patronage system and weaken opposition movements’ prospects in future elections. It was also a strong demonstration that his administration is not serious about establishing greater government accountability.

NATO and the international community must do everything possible to foster accountable government at all levels in Afghanistan. Although Afghanistan’s government does not need to be fully centralized, Afghanistan cannot succeed if the central government fails. For this reason, unless the Karzai government changes course there is no justification for NATO member countries to risk the lives of their soldiers and commit other valuable resources to the struggle in Afghanistan if the Afghan government’s corruption and legitimacy deficit make current progress unsustainable and achievement of NATO’s goals impossible.

Hamid Karzai is free to lead his country as he pleases, but the United States and its allies cannot and should not maintain their current levels of commitment unless his government can establish itself as a viable partner. The 18-month clock is ticking.

Jamie F. Metzl, who served in US President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council, is executive vice president of the Asia Society and served as an election monitor in the August 2009 Afghan elections.