That’s the biggest danger in Afghanistan: Not that the Taliban insurgents will beat U.S. or NATO forces on the battlefield (Petraeus seems to have made tactical gains in the past few months), but rather that they’ll offer more services, security, and justice than Karzai’s government can manage.
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This is why officials were so alarmed by Karzai’s interview in the Post. It revealed him railing against the very strategy and tactics that are designed to give his government the breathing space—the secure environment—to let it provide services, security, and justice. It is a strategy designed to show the Afghan people that they don’t need the Taliban for those things—that Karzai’s government can provide them as well or better.

And Karzai was saying these things just as the leaders of the NATO nations were about to take a deep breath and commit themselves to this war for more years and with more troops—and at a time when, in general, the people of the NATO nations are growing impatient about the war’s less-than-sparkling prospects.