Afghanistan Election Crisis

The disputed election results in Afghanistan, have potentiall catoshpric consequences for security in the region and Barack Obama’s presidency. According to the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8314302.stm the current President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzi received around 55% of the vote compared to the 28% received by his closed challenger Dr. Abdullah, Abdullah in an election marred by allegations by the United Nations based Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC)of widespread electoral fraud. It is alleged that as many as 1 in 4 votes may have been tampered with.
This is happening against the backdrop of the chief General of the forces in Afghanistan Stanley McChrystal making a request for an additional 40000 troops to the White House. But can Obama afford to be seen as propping up a undemocratic regime , which has committed wide spread voting fraud especially after just receiving the Nobel Peace Prize? Acoording to Rahm Emanuel http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/18/rahm-emanuel-no-troop-esc_n_325099.html the White House Chief of Staff the US will not send additional troops unless a” credible and legitimate” government is power. This is happeing while a major battle rages in Pakistan between the Pakistani government and the Taliban, further adding to the instability in the region.
A piece in the Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125587282013392519.html stressed the differences between the primary voting bloc of Karzai being of the Pashtun tribe and those of Abdullah being ethnically Tajiki. The piece also stressed Karzai’s claims of the elections commission being foreign interference. It also made a point of how the Taliban drew most of its support from ethnic Pashtuns and how disputing the election made help the Taliban and make the Coalition forces even more unpopular, as they could be perceived as occupying forces. All this makes the War in Afghanistan perhaps the make or break world politics issue of Obama’s presidency.