Quote du Jour

Johann Hari lays out an especially difficult choice facing the Hamid Karzai regime and his U.S. backers in on-the-cusp Afghanistan:

There are two possible futures for Afghanistan. In the first, Hamid Karzai responds to the clear democratic will of his people – 'everyone I know wants the poppies to be legal,' Sayed says – and legalises the supply of heroin. Only once Karzai can tax the country's single biggest product and reclaim it from criminal gangs is there any chance of extending democratic rule beyond Kabul. But the other, darker Afghanistan looks more likely – one where Karzai ignores his people and follow the dictates of the ex-drug user George W Bush to create a 'drug-free Afghanistan'. This is a recipe for endless civil war, with a heroin-fatted Taliban launching more and more raids to burn girls' schools and trash any rebuilding, far onto the historical horizon.

(Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish.)