The top NATO military commander in Afghanistan, British Gen. David Richards, has warned that Afghanistan is at a crucial juncture. If the lives of ordinary Afghans do not improve soon, there is the very real danger that they will switch their allegiance back to the Taliban. Loss of the support of the Afghan people would fatally undermine Western efforts to build a new, democratic government in Kabul and return the Muslim fundamentalists to government. The setback in the fight against global terror and the attempt to spread democracy would be incalculable.

There was never any real doubt about the outcome when the United Nations authorized an attack on the Afghanistan government in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States. The crude militia that had consolidated power and defeated rival warlords in the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan was no match for the combined power of the West's militaries.

But winning the war and winning the peace are two very different battles. Driving the Taliban from Kabul and other major cities was merely the first step in a campaign to pacify the country and hand power over to a functioning government in Kabul. The Afghan people made their preferences known in elections in 2004, but their support was always contingent on some return to normalcy: security, stability, basic services. It is in these basic tasks that the government of President Hamid Karzai has failed so miserably.