Democracy is not a quick fix, and you need to have civil society in place for [elections] to work. Unfortunately, it didn't. It backfired.

It's a setback for peace and a victory for terrorism. The U.S. policy has always been to promote democracy and fight terrorism. This raises the question of whether you can do both simultaneously. If you don't eliminate terrorism first, you get what we got today.

Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.

Maintain democracy or go to dictatorship: that is what is at stake in these elections.

What is at stake is not the provincial council elections, but democracy.

The findings suggest that American public opinion is starkly divided when it comes to the role of religion in the public square, and that our nation's proud tradition of church-state separation is threatened as never before.