A Lesson We Won't Learn

Yglesias makes a good point about Karzai's election fraud in Afghanistan:

But I think there’s a lesson here about America’s tendency toward geopolitical self-righteousness. When Russia backs pro-Russian political leaders in countries that are important to Russia (Georgia, Ukraine, etc.) even when they commit election fraud, the tendency is for the United States to enter an orgy of moralistic denunciations. But we, too, have our moments in which we feel strategic interests compel us to keep backing our favorite horse even if he commits some election fraud. We don’t need to embrace it when other countries do it, but it’s worth having some humility.

The chances of us learning this lesson: zero.