Is the Karzai government hopeless?

All sides agree that counterinsurgency cannot be successful if there is no partner for us to work with. Do we have one in Afghanistan?

Option 1: Are you serious? George Will:

U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry hopes for a “renewal of trust” of the Afghan people in the government, but the Economist describes President Hamid Karzai’s government — his vice presidential running mate is a drug trafficker — as so “inept, corrupt and predatory” that people sometimes yearn for restoration of the warlords, “who were less venal and less brutal than Mr. Karzai’s lot.”

Option 2: Remember what the Iraqi government was like before we showed that we were playing to win. John Kerry in September 2006:

No American soldier should be asked to stand up for an Iraqi government that won’t stand up for freedom and against fear…

It’s long overdue for the president to realize that no American soldier should be sacrificed because Iraqi factions refuse to resolve their ethnic rivalries and their competing grasp for oil revenues…Make Iraqis stand up for Iraq – and bring our heroes home.