• Just how bad are the Chicago Bulls?  Opposing player with the ball ties his shoes in live play and no Bulls player even tries to take the ball.  See link (includes video).
• Not a shocker.  Vladimir Putin hints that he may run for President and take back his previous office in 2012.  Meanwhile legal institutions and the rule of law in his country atrophy.
• Nicolas Sarkozy shoots off his mouth, ticks off the United Kingdom.
• Former Pakistani dictator’s graft amnesty challenged in court.  It could affect the ability of President Zardari formerly known as Mr. Ten Percent to stay in power.
• Iraq may have finally got a deal to hold its elections.  Previous blogs here and here.  The electoral deal staves off a potential civil war over sharing power and oil revenues.  Here’s hoping it holds.  Maybe we can finally start satisfying some of the other benchmarks George Bush talked about.

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First Honduras and now Iraq, expressing optimism about people coming to their senses can be a perilous exercise.  After an previous optimistic post from me, the deal is now starting to unravel.  Unhappy with their seat allocation the Kurds are threatening a boycott and the Sunnis are expressing their displeasure as well.  It seems that the Kurds have not learned from the Sunni boycott of the previous elections that such a step is ultimately self defeating.  The elections will happen, the Kurds will be locked out of the corridors of power and ticked off groups will resort to the gun.  The mess in Iraq also shows just how hard it is to conduct a multi-ethnic state when there is no trust among the various ethnic groups.

Some good news from the middle east.  Iraq’s parliament finally approved an electoral law that will allow it to administer a national election in January without the boycotts that plagued the last election.  There is an element of kicking the can down the road, particularly with respect to Kirkuk, but it is heartening to see a compromise decided peacefully and not with guns.  Here’s hoping that the other ethnic mish-mash America is involved in continues on this path.

Pakistani journalist Ahmad Rashid has an interesting blog on how the United States forced a recalcitrant Karzai to accept a runoff.   However, as Matt Yglesias notes that the ethnic tinderbox in Afghanistan likely forces the United States to root for a victory by the inept Karzai.  The lack of a Pashtun alternative with support from his own community and who would be acceptable to Afghanistan’s other minorities has left the United States with little room to maneuver and hopefully the runoff will not saddle the United States with a partner of dubious legitimacy.

Yglesias’s article also raises another point that has not always been addressed recently.   Is the Presidential system really suited for an ethically diverse country like Afghanistan?  While a Parliamentary system runs the risk of executive gridlock, it also gives a voice to minority groups from elected representatives instead of warlords and self appointed community leaders.  It is also a reason why even Iraq adopted a parliamentary system.  Such a system would also prevent Afghanistan from being saddled with a leader out of his depth for a fixed term of the next four years.