COMMENT Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, gives good speeches; no question about it. Sworn in on Thursday, after a massively rigged election that did not really take place across large swathes of his country under the sway of the Taliban, he artfully pressed all the right buttons. Peace and reconciliation, national unity, Afghan forces taking over responsibility for their own security within three to five years, a crusade against corruption, the overhaul of government – he pledged the lot.
Yet, as Barack Obama said bluntly to him earlier this month, “proof is not going to be in words, it’s going to be in deeds”.
