It Must Not Be the Last

Afghanistan’s Saturday election had its flaws, but holding it at all was a major success for a nation that little more than three years ago suffered under the brutal grip of the Taliban and offered safe haven to Al Qaeda. It was especially heartening to see long-oppressed women flock to the polls. Opposition-party complaints of irregularities do not seem serious enough to invalidate the election, but they deserve a hearing.

It will take weeks to count the ballots. Interim President Hamid Karzai is expected to win easily, although if he failed to get 50% of the votes he’ll face another round of balloting. Karzai has been the clear choice of the United States, which has surrounded him with bodyguards and expert advisors.

It is a mark of Afghanistan’s continued insecurity that Karzai’s running mate experienced an attempt on his life three days before the election and that several U.N. poll workers were killed in the weeks before balloting. Taliban insurgents were unable to disrupt the election, but they remain a threat to Afghans and the 18,000 U.S. and 8,000 other Western troops in the country. Unlike in Iraq, the nation-building project in Afghanistan is a truly multinational effort, but the increasing violence, record opium crop and undiminished strength of the warlords underscore the insufficiency of international aid and firepower deployed there. The international community now must be sure not to walk away after checking the box marked “democracy in Afghanistan.” When other nations lost interest after the Soviets were forced out in 1989 after a decade of invasion, occupation and guerrilla war, the way to civil war and the Taliban takeover was opened.

Afghanistan was never colonized and prides itself on having beaten back the British soldiers who tried in the 18th and 19th centuries to extend their domain beyond what is now Pakistan. That nationalistic impulse should spur Washington to lean on other countries to spend the money they have promised and to provide more soldiers outside Kabul, the capital.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that only $947 million of the $9.7 billion pledged by international donors had been disbursed by last summer. Spending the money that was promised would grant the Karzai government more credibility and weaken the grip of tribal chieftains and warlords.

The Bush administration pushed hard for the presidential elections so it could boast of a foreign policy victory. It needs to expend the same amount of energy increasing security in Afghanistan and ensuring that Saturday’s election was not the last.