The announcement that Abdullah Abdullah and Hamid Karzai are not interested in a coalition government after the Afghan Presidential run-off is, in fact, not bad news. There’s no reason why a power-sharing agreement would make Afghanistan’s political system more stable, as both Karzai and Abdullah are aligned with the United States. The problems are more inherent than even the massively fraudulent first election.
No matter how hard we wish, the Taliban are not going away. They are a native, Pashtun force, and must be involved in any post-conflict Afghan society. Yes, many of their social attitudes are abhorrent and not at all compatible with a liberal, democratic society. But Afghanistan isn’t a liberal, democratic society, and won’t turn into one any time in the near future. Drawing the Taliban into the political process will be the only ultimate solution to Afghanistan’s problem (though, to be fair, the Durand Line is the actual problem in the whole mess—and in a perfect world, the Afghan-Pakistan border would be redrawn). Adding more troops to the country will come to absolutely no benefit if intense political reconciliation is not simultaneously sought (and achieved on some level).
Furthermore, Afghanistan’s political institutions are not suitable for Afghanistan. A presidential system was not and is not an intelligent political design for a constantly fragmented and decentralized society. Abdullah Abdullah ran on a campaign platform of reforming Afghanistan’s political system, including switching from a presidential system to a parliamentary form of government. This is a fresh, contextual idea, and needs to be seriously explored. It would be much easier to integrate the Taliban into the political system in a parliamentary form of government than in a winner-take-all Presidency. Hopefully, a parliamentary system would be less conducive to corrupt bribery, and more susceptible to political bargaining (it’s a fine line, but a definitive one).
