The Times
Giles Whittell in Washington and Jerome Starkey in Kabul

The White House has issued its strongest warning yet that President Karzai cannot count on continued US support if he fails to accept that Afghanistan’s fraudulent election has critically undermined his authority.

President Obama was said yesterday to be more concerned at “whether there’s an Afghan partner” worth defending than with the politically fraught question of how many more troops to send, according to Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama’s chief of staff and a central figure in White House deliberations on Afghanistan.

His rare public remarks were echoed by comments from Senator John Kerry, who has flown to Kabul to join efforts to persuade Mr Karzai to either accept a second round of voting or enter a power-sharing deal with his opponent, Dr Abdullah Abdullah.

The Karzai campaign has said it will not negotiate unless the incumbent is declared the outright winner of the August election. It raised the stakes further at the weekend by continuing to defy the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission. (Read more)