Afghan Election Poses New Tests for Washington

From The New York Times:

Obama administration officials hoped the Afghan election would demonstrate that eight years after the American invasion, the country was stable enough to justify an expanded commitment of money and troops from an increasingly skeptical American public.

Instead, the election did more to underscore the challenges Afghanistan faces, particularly if the election goes to a runoff, as seems increasingly likely, between President Hamid Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.

Western officials . . . were clearly concerned on Friday that a second round of voting could extend the paralysis of a government that already barely functions and deepen ethnic tensions, in the worst case, to the point of a north-south civil war.