THE RESURGENCE of the Taliban in Afghanistan calls into question the determination of the United States and NATO to fight terrorism on its home ground.
The defeat of the Taliban was the first national response by the United States to the attacks of Sept. 11. It was a fight that made sense. Al-Qaida was using Afghanistan as a safe haven to train terrorists and the Taliban government refused either to expel Osama bin Laden and his followers or to allow foreign troops to come in and do the job.
Other reasons for the invasion were advanced at the time, the primary one being that the United States was fighting to free the people of Afghanistan — particularly the women — from the draconian rule of the extreme fundamentalists. But the real reason was the one given above — to destroy al-Qaida.
The United States came very close to achieving that goal, but then its attention wandered. Military resources were pulled out of Afghanistan to fight in Iraq. The new Afghan government, confined to the capital by heavily armed opposition, was left to depend on opium-dealing warlords for national control. As pared-down NATO forces began to replace U.S. troops in the south, the Taliban began to come out of hiding, seizing cities and challenging troops in open battles.
Unless NATO and the United States quickly commit the troops necessary to secure all of Afghanistan against the renewed threat, the war that was almost won four years ago could be lost in the next few months.
At the very least, the revitalized Taliban will render the weak central government powerless outside the city limits of Kabul. At worst, the fundamentalists could once again take full control of the country and bin Laden could build new training camps.
And the world would be back where it started on Sept. 11, 2001.