How to Help Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The current political and military meltdown in Afghanistan was entirely predictable and avoidable. For the past three years Afghans, their president, Hamid Karzai, and foreign experts have been warning that the failure of the United States and the international community to provide sufficient economic, military and reconstruction resources to the fledgling Afghan government would lead to a Taliban resurgence and disillusionment among the Afghan people. That is exactly what has happened.

But there is still a way out of the mess if the international community and the Afghans pull together, rather than being at odds with one another. Karzai set the ball rolling late last month by calling for a joint strategy in a critical meeting with the most important foreign players in Kabul.

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The situation is dire. The Taliban offensive in the south and the counteroffensive by British, Canadian and U.S. troops under NATO has escalated into a full-scale war, with a dozen attacks every day and 700 lives lost since mid-May. Most Afghans are angry with the United States and the West for ignoring the alleged sanctuary provided to the Taliban by Pakistan, and with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for apparently supporting Karzai and the Taliban at the same time.

Papering over the cracks between Pakistan and Afghanistan, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to do in her recent visit to the region, is clearly not enough. The charges and suspicions on both sides have to be addressed. Ordinary Afghans say the Taliban virus is spreading. The Taliban have been reported just 25 miles from Kabul, and they have attacked in the north and the west -- hundreds of miles from their main bases in the south. According to the United Nations, every single day somewhere in Afghanistan a girls' school is burned down or a female teacher killed by the Taliban.

The riots in Kabul in late May that left 20 people dead were also indicative of how angry Afghans are at their own government. While Karzai has lashed out at the West for not providing adequate resources, Afghans and foreigners have been scathing in their criticism of his inability to govern effectively or to punish those in his administration who are corrupt or dealing in drugs.

Karzai has failed to put together an effective administrative team. The cabinet is dysfunctional, and his growing dependence on former warlords, whose militias have only recently been disarmed, is seen by many as a betrayal of the reform agenda set out in the Bonn agreement of 2001.