I still don't know what to think about the long-term implications of Afghanistan's elections. Obviously, they have been about as huge a success as possible in the short term. Arthur Chrenkoff, not surprisingly, is energized. This time, he didn't have to stretch to find good news. It looks like the Taliban has been militarily broken and politically marginalized for now, but I worry that the expectations game could work against Karzai if he isn't able to deliver a goat in every pot over the next year. And the next round, the parliamentary elections, could be extraordinarily divisive, as Nir Rosen points out.

But I think this bodes well:

Yunus Qanooni, Hamid Karzai's chief rival in Afghanistan's presidential election, said he will accept the outcome, as Karzai swept the country's south and southeast en route to outright victory.

"I have made sacrifices for the national interests of Afghanistan and I am ready to make another sacrifice," former education minister Qanooni told AFP on Wednesday.

"Observing the visible fraud in the election, and then respecting the national interest of Afghanistan, is a sacrifice."

Asked if that meant he would accept the result he replied: "Yes, you understood me well."

If Karzai can use his mandate to improve the lives of all Afghans (rather than only Pashtuns, who he seems to have won over at the last minute) and avoids the kind of overreaching crackdown that John Robb worries about, Afghanistan may well muddle through. It's not going to be a democracy as we understand the term, but it will be far better than the anarchy of civil war or the bizarre repression of the Taliban.

One final comment: I don't think Zalmay Khalilzad has gotten enough credit for what has been achieved there. He clearly has the political savvy and the toughness for the job. His and Karzai's wheeling and dealing have been the keys to Afghanistan's relative calm. I can't imagine the stress he's been under in keeping devious crooks like Dostum and Fahim from making trouble while sidelining Ismail Khan and getting the Pashtuns on board. It's a shame we don't have anyone with Khalilzad's acumen working for us in Iraq.