Reality check: ordinary Afghans react to runoff election:

[beachmom]

http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/22/word_on_the_afghan_street

"I am worried that something will go wrong with the elections. Many people are worried. So Karzai's acceptance of the results is good. He has decided to avoid confrontation. It is a wise decision. It eases the tension in the country." -- manager in a large company in Balkh

"Let me tell you, I am afraid. I lived through all the wars, but I was young then. Now I am old and I don't have the patience or the tolerance anymore... We had a lot of fraud in our election. Everywhere in the world there is fraud in elections, but other countries are more developed so their fraud is more developed. Here we somehow didn't know how things work... I used to work in the IEC for many years, but in this election when I saw how dirty the process had become and how the voter cards were being distributed everywhere, I quit. I didn't want to lose my good name for a salary... Karzai announced today that there will be a second round. He was in a bad situation and his speech was all over the place. What he said? Whatever he said, he was forced to say it. He had no choice... We're going to have another election but we still have no candidate we would want to vote for." -- woman at a Kabul wedding

"The Karzai supporters in the south are very stressed because of the second round. They say that the foreigners are not giving Karzai his victory. But the maleks (village leaders) are very happy, because they will be making a lot of money again in the campaign. The common people, they will not vote. They did not vote before -- and the boxes were still full -- and they will not go now... We had hoped the election would bring change. That would have been good, but it didn't happen. So for that reason maybe we should have a second round. Even though there are problems, you should give us a second round. So they will understand that the nation has a right and that you cannot just rule over it as you wish." -- southern tribal elder

Yes, what Kerry did was good, and it would have been a disaster if Karzai had condemned the U.N. panel's findings. Still, it will be a long and difficult journey, and I am unsure if it will work.