It's up to the West

It's all up to the West in Afghanistan now, writes the left-liberal daily La Repubblica: "Politics have taken over in Afghanistan, or rather taken over once again. The debates on TV and the radio were professional and managed to arouse the enthusiasm of at least a sector of the population, above all the young … . And this sector won't be persuaded to return to the yoke of the mullahs. But all this doesn't erase the memory of how dumb the West's decision was seven years ago to try and force a country that was in a disastrous state into the straitjacket of parliamentary democracy … . Whether [President] Hamid Karzai wins, which seems likely, or his rival Abdullah Abdullah, who according to surveys is catching up, the president will bring with him a swarm of commanders of an ethnic militia into the [government] palace. … Any of these Samurai will have the backing of foreign spies - Russian, Iranian, Indian, Arab - and probably also that of a drug-trafficking network. But if the West moves to pull the strings invisibly it could avoid this derailment."

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