You Can Vote For Anyone So Long As It's Me

I wouldn't normally get political but just as a one off, I notice that Afghanistan has been rolled over again and Karzai, who so far as I can tell is a US puppet, has been 're-elected' as President. This was after his only real rival, Abdullah, pulled out of the second round of voting, Karzai not having received enough votes in the first round.
Yet only last week they were talking as if Karzai had lost, so what happened between then and now that caused Abdullah to simply give up I don't know. In any case it seems likely that Karzai's presidency's legitimacy might be questioned in a lot of countries.
More to the point it's likely to be questioned by a lot of people in Afghanistan itself; the US-led invasion in 2001 was billed as being a restoration of democracy, not that I like using such a hackneyed and misuderstood word, after the Taliban period and yet it seems they have only one choice now as well.
In short, I think they're losing Afghanistan. I hope not, I don't think the US is all bad and need always be a force for instability in the world; preferable to the taliban anyway. But it's not augering well at the mo', especially when added to the taliban forces' increasingly brazen attacks in neighbouring Pakistan.