WASHINGTON -- Afghanistan's presidential elections came off with little violence but some damaging controversy. President Hamid Karzai's 15 opponents charged vote fraud.
Whether the election is perceived as legitimate is only the second-most important issue facing the war-torn nation. Most critical is whether the Bush administration risks undermining the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in an attempt to suppress drug production.
Afghanistan has become a global Opiates-R-Us. In a nation where the average wage is a couple bucks a day, heroin and opium trafficking produced revenues last year estimated at $2.3 billion annually -- as much as 60 percent of Afghanistan's official annual gross domestic product. Opium has become the perfect export from a land enveloped by chaos and war.