FOR all Iraq’s bloody troubles, it is surely still better off than Afghanistan.

The partial peace in Afghanistan for three years is not just a figment of US and British spin, although there has been no shortage of that. It is not an illusion. It does represent success. But its scope is limited. Afghanistan is in danger of going backwards towards the lawlessness of the past, when warlords ruled over a jumble of violent fiefdoms that could barely be called a single country.

First, the success. Hamid Karzai is still President, and still in control of a stable government that is broadly representative of Afghanistan’s people. Next month’s elections for parliament and provincial councils will be a crucial next step.

Come to that, it is some achievement that he is still alive. There is a cost in the suffocating degree of security. Just to travel around Kabul is a formidable exercise. He is isolated. But he is still there, and that is more than many predicted.

The gibes that he is no more than “Mayor of Kabul” are unfair. He has had enough command outside the capital to dislodge key warlords, neutering them by giving them bureaucratic jobs, and to persuade provincial governors to pay him some revenue by way of tax. Much of the foreign aid that was promised has been delivered — and spent, say British officials. Many foreign troops in the country are organised into “provincial reconstruction teams” — helping local government rather than tied down in keeping the peace.

These are huge steps. They are signs that Afghanistan might be capable of functioning like a normal country.

So the pleasure and relief that the US and Britain have expressed at Afghanistan’s progress since the war — and at its peacefulness compared with Iraq — are not fraudulent. But the roots are shallow. Warlords are still powerful, particularly in the southeast. If they grab many seats in the elections, it will be unfortunate.

The resurgence of the Taleban in the southeast is not a passing phenomenon which will trouble a few US special forces teams and then dissolve.

Its strength reflects sustained help from Pakistan’s tribal areas, in money and men. Rather than asking when Osama bin Laden will be caught, it seems better to ask why he should ever be caught, given the depth of support for his Taleban hosts which is now apparent. The drugs trade on its own is one of the worst problems, delivering a powerful current of cash to Karzai’s enemies. As recently as June British officials said they hoped that next year would show a drop in the opium crop. No longer, it seems.

You can still sketch out the distant hope for Afghanistan that it becomes a hub of trade in Central Asia.

But it lacks the educated workforce and the oil which Iraq, for all its troubles, does have, while the Tajik north and the Pashtun south sometimes seem to match Iraq’s factions in the depth of their rivalry.

It is more peaceful than Iraq, for now, but that is not enough.

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