Canceled Afghan election and echoes of Vietnam

Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah announced yesterday that he would not participate in a runoff against incumbent president Hamid Karzai, originally scheduled to take place six days from now. This morning, Afghanistan’s election commission officially cancelled the election entirely.

This morning we’re comparing two conflicts involving electoral politics and counterinsurgency strategies from today and over 40 years ago: Afghanistan and Vietnam. We talk with Gordon Goldstein, author of “Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam,” and Fotini Christia, Afghanistan analyst and professor of Political Science at MIT.