No Easy Answers for Afghanistan

The problems facing postwar Afghanistan are well known: a humanitarian crisis, a chronic lack of public funds, political factionalism, insecurity and law-breaking, and the continuing depredations of rump Tailban forces, al-Qaida sympathisers and the US airforce.

What is still unclear is how Afghanistan's many new friends propose to tackle those problems.

Afghanistan, particularly northern Afghanistan, remains in the grip of severe food shortages, both in terms of immediate need and longer-term production.

Relief workers have succeeded in mitigating what last autumn threatened to become a major disaster.

But with the UN reporting continuing threats to the safety of its workers, and with international attention shifting elsewhere - to Zimbabwe and southern Africa, for example - it is uncertain for how long this effort can be sustained.

Many Afghan farmers have meanwhile taken matters into their own hands, planting not food crops but opium poppies destined for a reviving heroin trade.

The international pledging conference in Tokyo last month came up with a total of $4.5bn in foreign aid for Afghanistan.

But, unsurprisingly, these promises have yet to translate into readily available cash on the nail, let alone into the reconstruction projects and public works that are needed to restart the economy.

The interim administration led by Hamid Karzai estimates that only 3-4% of its current budget is self-financed through government-collected revenues. It is beholden for the remainder to outsiders' generosity.

The tax-raising and tax-collecting apparatus is all but non-existent. The only reason government workers in Kabul are receiving any salary at all is thanks to emergency funds administered through the UN.

For similar reasons, the bureaucracy, such as it is, is ill-equipped to handle donor funds on a large scale.

This in turn increases the chances of misappropriation and embezzlement. There is little reason to suppose this situation will improve in the near future.

Nevertheless, Mr Karzai and his ministers are trying to ensure that all foreign aid is channelled through them in order to maximise Kabul's leverage with recalcitrant provincial governors and warlords.

One of the most pressing tasks facing Mr Karzai is the creation of a national army, essential if the government's writ is to extend beyond the capital - which it barely does at present.

In this instance, his financial and administrative difficulties are only the beginning of the problems.

Neighbouring Russia, for example, is keen to have a role in training and equipping the new force - and is being encouraged to do so by the defence minister, General Mohammed Fahim.

Gen Fahim's faction of the Northern Alliance has re-established, pre-September 11 links to the Russians.

President Vladimir Putin, for his part, clearly wants to maximise Moscow's clout in a part of the world that it has, historically speaking, sought to draw into its sphere of influence.

All this has caused consternation in Britain, for example, whose troops are currently leading the international security assistance force and which thought it was in charge of creating a new national army.

British commanders organised an initial training session this week but were said to be disappointed when only 200 Afghans turned up.

Adding to British concerns is the dawning, belated realisation in Whitehall that UK troops could be stuck in Afghanistan indefinitely.

The British contingent was supposed to leave in April. But Turkey and Germany, for different reasons, now appear increasingly unlikely to step into the breach, while the Bush administration has so far refused to have anything to do with peacekeeping duties.

The US says it wants to help create a national army to bolster Mr Karzai. But the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has repeatedly argued that self-help is the only lasting solution to Afghan security problems.

That is why he does not want US ground troops doing a job that he argues, the Afghans should be doing themselves.

On the other hand, the US is anxious to clear up its unfinished business with al-Qaida and Taliban groups that it believes still pose a threat.

To this end, US special forces are reportedly recruiting local fighters in southern and eastern Afghanistan into "anti-terror" units organised in cooperation with, or under the auspices of, local warlords.

This policy, if continued, can only have the effect of entrenching regional factionalism, rather than fortifying central government.

Meanwhile, the US air force continues to treat Afghanistan as one large hunting ground, undertaking search and destroy missions with only perfunctory reference to Mr Karzai and his administration.

And General Tommy Franks, the US central command chief in charge of Afghan operations, continues to deny almost every cock-up and alleged intelligence failure, including those that have resulted in civilian casualties.

Speaking of the recent raid on the village of Hazar Qadam in which 16 Afghans died, Gen Franks denied that US forces were "trigger-happy" or that the Americans had made a mistake.

"The one mistake that I know was made was when people shot at American forces," he said. Such insouciance hardly strengthens Mr Karzai's standing or credibility with his own people.

Two broader considerations form the backdrop to these problem-plagued aspects of Afghanistan's future. One is the uncertain future of the Bonn process that launched the Karzai government.

Whether the timetable under which a national convention is called in the next few months, a new unified government agreed, and electoral procedures set in train can be adhered to looks ever more uncertain.

The other consideration is the prospect of the focus of the US "war against terrorism" moving elsewhere, particularly to Iraq.

Mr Karzai and his colleagues must surely know that if Washington really does launch into a new war against Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan and all its woes will quickly be pushed to one side and may quickly, even conveniently, be forgotten.