A blustering speech from President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan left many international observers puzzling yesterday. His speech came just days after a public dressing-down by President Obama. And it came the day after the Afghan Parliament voted against his amendments to a law banning non-Afghans from the UN-backed election commission that exposed last year’s election fraud.

Both puzzling and contrary. That’s the speech and it’s probably also a useful analogy for Afghanistan as well.

The speech carried few moments of eloquence but his repetition style near the beginning was noteworthy:

“There is no doubt that the fraud was very widespread, but this fraud was not committed by Afghans, it was committed by foreigners. This fraud was committed by Galbraith, this fraud was committed by Morillon and this fraud was committed by embassies.”

Not his best speaking performance; but a political speech that signals more trouble ahead.