Democracy is a fragile seed: if you want it to take root, it is probably best not to plant it in a hurricane. That, however, is what the Western allies have just tried to do in Helmand. In Babaji district, we learned this week, four British soldiers died for the sake of 150 votes. Has any sacrifice seemed more futile?
Gordon Brown, in Afghanistan yesterday administering more tonic for the troops, can smile all he likes. Operation Panther's Claw, a bloody offensive specifically designed to drive the Taliban out of central Helmand ahead of the presidential election – a Nato-Isaf (International Security Assistance Force) version of the lauded US troop surge that helped turn the tide of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq – was a failure.
Nato did not "secure the elections", as promised. Instead, there has been ballot-stuffing and fraud on a massive scale, particularly in the south. Votes have been so cynically manipulated by the incumbent, Hamid Karzai – the former darling of the West, now definitively exposed as a man more interested in power than the principles of democracy – that the credibility of Isaf, never mind the final election result, is in jeopardy.
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