Nation Building in Afghanistan Update: Karzai Getting the Boot

With the economy tanking, the debt levels at red alert - it's unfortunate that the new US administration has to worry about who leads a stone age country, half a world away in Afghanistan. The nation building/democratizing project is not working out and now it appears Hamid Karzai is wearing out his welcome in Washington.

Barack Obama's arrival in the White House and the wind of change sweeping through Washington could lead to the ousting from power of Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, The Independent has learnt. International support for Mr Karzai, who was once the darling of the West, has waned spectacularly, amid worsening violence, endemic corruption and weak leadership. But until very recently, diplomats insisted there were no viable alternatives even as fighting has intensified and the Taliban insurgency in the south has grown.

It didn't work out with Karzai. The real surprise would have been if it did.

Karzai officials had hoped Hillary Clinton, now the US Secretary of State, would prove their ally in White House. But those hopes were dashed last week when she branded Afghanistan a "narco-state" with a government "plagued by limited capacity and widespread corruption" during her confirmation hearing.

Clinton has been in the Senate since the Afghan War started in 2001. She waited until 2008 to make this statement? She just came to this conclusion? She was a member of the Senate Committe on Armed Services and she never piped up on this?

They are bungling their way through this. The next guy they're going to appoint in Afghanistan is going to be better? We're looking at another fours years minmum, as the new administration tries to feel its way through this. It's too bad, this is their chance to say "mission accomplished" and go home. We've rooted out the Al Qaeda camps from the country and that was the mission in the first place. Let them do their own nation building.