Our man in Kabul

The cancellation of the runoff election in Afghanistan gives Hamad Karzai a new term as president but with scant legitimacy in the eyes of his people and the world.

The first round in August, which Karzai won, was so tainted by corruption and irregularities that he was pressured by the international community into agreeing to a runoff. But that fell through when the challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew, convinced that the new election would also be unfair.

The Obama administration, which had touted the election as a sign of progress in a war-torn land deemed crucial to American security in the campaign against Islamic terrorism, is now stuck with Karzai, a slim reed at best but now perhaps fatally tarnished.

Obama, who has been wrestling with a new military strategy in Afghanistan, admonished Karzai to "move boldly and forcefully forward" with reforms to curb rampant corruption and the drug trade that fuel the Taliban insurgency.

Whether Karzai is so inclined is doubtful, however. Since being installed as president after the rout of the Taliban in 2001, he's turned a blind eye to corruption -- his brother and one of his running mates have been implicated in the opium trade and he reinstated a warlord accused of war crimes -- and has achieved little progress in improving the livelihood and security of his people.

While Obama augmented U.S. forces by 21,000 to "secure the election," his Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is seeking an additional 40,000 troops to wage a counter-insurgency campaign, which smacks of "nation-building." But such an enterprise is doomed without a reliable partner government in Kabul.

Unless Karzai undergoes a swift leadership conversion, the U.S. needs to lower its sights and rethink its Afghan strategy. The Karzai we've come to know isn't worth more American money and blood.