WASHINGTON — Millions of Afghans will vote in the country's first presidential election Saturday, offering the rest of the world one of the most hopeful images from a land struggling to emerge from decades of war and privation.
Yet voters will be surrounded by scenes that cast the new Afghanistan in a different light: buildings flattened in insurgent attacks and factional fighting; mountain valleys carpeted with opium poppies; newly opened schools filled with children who are eager to learn, yet undersized from the malnourishment that continues everywhere.
Nearly three years after the U.S. military and its Afghan allies ousted the repressive Taliban regime, Afghanistan has made some progress. Despite claims by President Bush, however, Afghanistan's bright future -- or even basic stability -- remains a distant hope. In many ways, security threats are more serious now than a year ago, posing a continuing concern in what remains a key front in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism.
The Afghan elections "are a relative bright spot," said James Dobbins, who was Bush's envoy to Afghanistan. "But they have to be understood in a picture that has some very serious dark sides.
"The security situation is not getting better. And I don't know if it can be reversed."
Although Afghanistan has taken steps toward democracy and has improved public health and education, the new government remains weak and violence is on the rise. Some of the regional warlords who have challenged the government have grown stronger, enriched by cash from the swelling opium economy. Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants have regrouped and stepped up their attacks on relief and reconstruction workers and public officials.
Afghanistan's deepening difficulties have raised questions about U.S. policy toward the country since the war's end. Although Bush has proclaimed his "ironclad commitment" to the country, many experts, including former U.S. officials, believe that his administration allowed Afghanistan's security problems to take hold by failing to move earlier to see that order was imposed.
These critics contend that the administration should have pushed to mobilize an international force of peacekeepers throughout the country, rather than focusing solely on the effort to root out Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants.
