The Taliban continues to pose a problem in and for Afghanistan. Seven years after the invasion by the United States international forces, the fundamentalist Islamic group remains resilient and elusive. Afghanistan President, Mr. Hamid Karzai’s warn that the Taliban will be chased across the border into Pakistan has predictably raised hackles in Islamabad. It is easy to dismiss Mr. Karzai’s tough talk as the swagger of a political leader who is dependent on American support for his survival in power and has an election coming up. But what he said remains true. The Taliban continue to use the tribal areas in Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) as a safe haven to recoup and attack their political rivals in Kabul. Despite American pressure to deal sternly with the Taliban, the Pakistani government has been quite unsuccessful in doing so.

There are some genuine problems involved in the matter. First, there is the issue of a porous border straddling the tribal areas in the south-west and north-west of Pakistan and the adjacent Afghan territories. Then there is the issue of tribal loyalties, which cannot be clinically severed. Karzai has expressed his willingness to reach out to the Taliban, and to bring them into the political mainstream. But his overture has proved ineffective. Most of all is the question of Pakistan’s apparent reluctance to root out the Taliban.

Pakistan will also have to realize that it cannot use religious fundamentalists to pursue foreign policy goals, either in Afghanistan or in Kashmir. Religious extremism is taking root inside Pakistan and it is vitiating domestic politics. The Americans are already on hot pursuit, and Mr. Karzai’s statement is a way of legitimizing the forays into Pakistan. But the solution does not lie that way. It will only expand the theatre of war, nothing more.

The growing perception that things in Afghanistan are deteriorating at a rapid pace is both gaining ground and forcing a reassessment by the Anglo-American alliance. The British foreign office has informally hinted to the media that this means gradually withdrawing from a hopeless situation in Iraq and concentrating all resources in winning the war in Afghanistan. That any suggestion of withdrawing from Afghanistan is going to have a disastrous effect on the already fragile Mr. Karzai government is well appreciated. Yet, it is undeniable that the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, far from bolstering the security of ordinary Afghans has become deeply unpopular.

At the root of the problem, as Curzon shrewdly discerned more than a century ago, is a mindset that is prefaced on a monopoly of enlightenment. People have lot of contempt for Afghan politicians. The Western view that Afghan democracy is so feeble that it needs constant guidance and supervision is based on cultural incomprehension. Despite many imperfections and failure to live up to dizzying expectations, President Mr. Karzai has done a reasonably good job of accommodating different factions and giving all the ethnic groups in the power structure. In short, all the features that constitute democracy are there in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a society in transition, struggling to recover the basic human dignities that were lost for 25-years. It needs all the encouragement and assistance in coping with external problems to help it find its own feet.