To Win Afghanistan, We Must Lose

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's inauguration today will be a somber affair. Gray storm clouds are slowly replacing the blue skies, and the sour tang of charcoal smoke hangs in the air. The mood among the internationals here is similarly gloomy. So many conversations end with the scratching of heads, with the tacit admission that no idea that has come forward has been big enough to reverse the Afghan government's steady loss of control.

This is not because of the flawed elections or the ghastly killing of foreigners. That's all bad, but it's not doomsday. Nearly two years ago, I heard the distant rumbles, like thunder, of the attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul, which killed seven people. The Afghan government's legitimacy was being questioned then too, and urgent reforms demanded -- without practical result. Two elections had already happened and were marred by fraud. We have been here before, and survived.

No, what is depressing about the situation in Afghanistan is not that it has suddenly gotten much worse but that it steadily fails to get better. By the time U.S. forces left Vietnam, the South Vietnamese army had at least proved itself capable of holding ground against its enemy, albeit with massive U.S. air support. In Afghanistan, by contrast, district after district in the country's troubled south is falling, in effect, under Taliban control. Meanwhile, in the Western nations with troops here, public support for the war is waning.