hamid karzai was a failure. but we need to learn the lessons from the past 15 years, especially the last year and a half. >> one of the interesting paradoxes of this government national unity is there is a much more significant and organize opposition to the national unity government then to the government of hamid karzai, which was a government of singular powers run by one person. the other thing is what is our responsibility for this government? i think omar is correct that after a bruising election, a transition that was not well handled and an economy that was tanking, we set the government up with its internal frictions and said you guys take care of this. when the iraq war was being debated in 2003, i think it was colin powell who said if we go in and break it, you own it. with governments, it is different. if you fix it, you own it. i i think that is what we hear with kerry's repeated visits to try to get these guys to work together. to the specific question of what can be done, and a lot of us have been

again, hamid karzai was a total failure in my opinion. so, we need to learn the lessons from the last now going back 15 years but especially the last year and a half. >> scott? >> i mean, one of the interesting paradoxes of the government of national unity there's a much more significant and organized opposition to it than there was to the government of hamid karzai which i guess was, you know, a government of singular powers, you know, run by one person. the other thing is what is our responsibility for this government. because i think omar is correct that after bruising election, a difficult negotiation over putting government together, a transition that was not so well handled and an economy that was tanking, we sort of said to the government with all of its internal frictions up and said, all right, now you guys take care of this. when the iraq war was being debated in 2003 i think it was colin powell who coined the pottery barn rule, look it, if we go you in and break it, we own it. a power sharing government is the opposite, if you

hamid karzai was a failure.e need to learn the lessons from the past 15 years, especially the last year and a half. mr. smith: there is a much more significant and organize opposition to the national unity government then to the government of hamid karzai, which was a government of singular powers run by one person. the other thing is what is our responsibility for this government? omar is correct that after a bruising election, a transition that was not well handled and an economy that was tanking, we set the government up with its internal frictions and said you guys take care of this. when the iraq war was being debated in 2003, i think it was colin powell who said if we go in and break it, you own it. with governments, it is different. if you fix it, you own it. i i think that is what we hear with kerry's repeated visits to try to get these guys to work together. to the specific question of what can be done, and a lot of us have been advocating for a long time that the two leaders of this government, if they

summer, without any resolution of the crisis, there were fears both here and in other places that hamid karzai was going to look to manipulate the political chaos to his advantage and try to somehow remain in power or cobble together some sort of ruling interim-caretaker-type government where his interests would be of paramount concern and they wouldn't move to a dramatically elected successor. so we were able to get there, i think, successfully. just the other point i would make quickly is on the difference between the political and the legal and constitutional questions that we're facing. i mean, the political agreement is a political agreement. it's not a constitution, as you've highlighted, there was a five-year term for the president. but in afghanistan, the reality is that people are often getting bogged down in what's legal and what's constitutional versus what's politically practical. and i think the latter is much more important to keep in mind in terms of finding solutions. >> i'm going to take that as a comment rather than a question, but thank you for sharing. you want a quick resp

we do the charlton early in iraq, we did it with the nut case, hamid karzai in afghanistan.nd the other problem is our state government can't accept over history borders changed. and several thought that iraq, with borders drawn by imperialists for their own interest, couldn't work and break it up. even as iraq is going to remain an integral state, it's breaking its self up. it didn't help, i'm trying to be objective. the bush administration poured so much money in the iraq and afghanistan, and we pour money into poor societies and we back men instead of institutions, we don't want borders to change even though they're dysfunctional and fix everything by pooring in tons of money and turning iraq and afghanistan into looting orgies for u.s. contractors. this is what you get, brother. charles: we must admit that karzai did cut a dashing figure. having said that, having said that, we do that, i think, with all third world countries even when they're not in war. to your point all the african dictators have swiss bank accounts. how do we get to say iraq, it's smart, let the kurds