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So we said we'd give the Afghans elections, and we did.
Trouble is, it turns out we gave them one of Iran's.
With claims of epic ballot-stuffing, voter intimidation, fraud and
vote-rigging, this poll seems to be apeing the one that got Mahmoud Ahmedinejad back into power over the border in Tehran.
The other key feature - a limbo-dancingly low turnout - suggests a model closer to home: a UK local council election.
So now it looks like Hamid Karzai will get back in and be even more discredited than before.
And, as one Brit diplomat was saying last week, that doesn't bode well for all the appointments he has to make.
In this regard he doesn't have the best track record.
Paddy Ashdown was going to be the west's super-envoy to Afghanistan and would have done a good job - before Karzai stopped the move.
Key allies of Karzai - even at least one close relative - have alleged links with the drugs trade.
Down in Helmand he fell out with the Brits over his preferred choice of governor.
They didn't like his man Sher Mohammad Akhundaza, with whom he has tribal ties.
The guy has an absolutely terrifying reputation and if some of the tales about him are true he'd not be out of place in a Quention Tarantino movie.
We've met the current governor Gulab Mangal and, while it's always hard to tell, he appears to be one of the good ones and is highly-rated by the UK.
But if he gets moved out of that job, it'll be even harder to make any progress in Helmand.
I just predict things are going to get even harder in Afgahnistan after this election.
And the trouble is, the only other option - pulling out - is even worse.

Once again this blog findsitself at the still centre of earth-shaking events.
"Bloodgate", the scandal which has rocked rugby union and eviscerated Harlequins RFC, has its roots very close to him.
For when Quins coach Dean RIchards wanteed to buy some fake joke shop blood, to where else should he turn but the Party Shop in Clapham Junction?
In this if nothing else the former Grand Slam winner was thorough.
It's the shop we turn to for all our daft dressing-up needs.
I can personaly speak highly of their 1920s gangster outfits and 1970s pimp ensembles.
Never bought any blood capsules there though.

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