Afghanistan's Troubled Transition - nationalinterest

Karzai has assured senior international officials that he will step down. Even so, Afghanistan rests in a fragile state of equilibrium. Karzai has cobbled together a brittle internal balance of power by bringing power brokers—many former warlords—into his government. Maintaining such a balance will be extremely difficult. (Needless to say, leaving Karzai in place would be even worse than a botched election, as even the semblance of democracy would be stripped away.) - Afghanistan's Troubled Transition - Jacob Stokes
A Foreign Policy of Mission Creep - Gordon N. Bardos