Karzai & Obama: The "Meddling" Conundrum

Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Tuesday lambasted "foreign" leaders who accuse him of running a corrupt government.

Normally, a rebuke of this sort would appear to be meaningless, due to the fact that Mr. Karzai, for all intents and purposes, is indeed running a corrupt government.

The problem, however, lies in the fact that Mr. Karzai's argument, and his rationale, are completely in line with President Obama's previously-stated position and political ideology:

During the widespread protests which broke out in Iran following the country's 2009 presidential election, President Obama said it would be inappropriate of him to interfere with the outcome of the election:

"It's not productive..." for "the U.S. president" to be perceived "as meddling in Iranian elections," he said.

And here's what President Karzai said on Tuesday:

"I ask our foreign friends not to interfere in our internal affairs, not to interfere in our constitution. They must stop meddling in our implementation of the law in our country."

And therein lies the problem: Were President Obama to interfere in the Afghan government's corrupt internal affairs, he would be directly contradicting his previous position, and his previous statements, regarding Iran's farcical election in 2009. This would be seen by the world as hypocrisy of the first order.

On the other hand, Obama has never been one to shy away from hypocrisy. In fact, the words 'hypocrisy' and 'Obama', by their very nature, are synonymous - they seem to go hand in hand. What's more, the President appears to be extremely comfortable and highly content wearing the moniker 'hypocrite'.

And, I suppose, therein lies the solution to the conundrum.

Problem solved!