Quote Originally Posted by The Wizard View Post
I'll admit the last sentence was a (cherished) fantasy, but I'm not so sure about the rest of the post. Surely we don't have to rely so much upon corrupt, backstabbing warlords who take our money with one hand and undermine our efforts with the other? Seems more like a case of extremely bad decision-making and political cowardice, to me. Just like supporting Diem in Vietnam.
As surprising as it may sound, these are no longer the days when Western countries can simply invade, occupy and subdue a country -if they ever could.

Even the US cannot afford the cost (mostly political, but also economic) of a protracted occupation of a foreign country. They have to work through local proxies. Unfortunately the underlying shared interest of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" doesn't mean shared goals once "the enemy" is pegged back a step or two. Karzai's government is corrupt and reviled by Afghans, but I bet they would prefer that to direct rule by the USA or a UN or NATO representative. You are also forgetting that Karzai did actually win Presidential re-election, by a safe margin that even the UN & EU observers couldn't whittle down far enough to make Dr Abdullah Abdullah a credible alternative to Afghans.