I’ve always been impressed with Karzai, but when you watch him at a press conference where the mikes are constantly going on and off and he spectacularly flubs a question about the most basic element of the democratic process—not that other presidents aren’t prone to flubs—you realize again that he is a leader of a deeply poor Third World country that is desperately trying to keep its head above the water. That is not to take anything away from him, in some ways it makes him more impressive and noble. But in evaluating progress in Afghanistan and Iraq—NR has made this point over and over about Iraq—it is important to judge them by their own standards. People are registering to vote in Afghanistan. That’s amazing. It’s still amazing if some of them are doing it three times. Better and decent are what our short-terms goals should be in both countries, and if we achieve that, it is quite a lot, and the predicate for more progress down the line.