When the U.S.-led coalition invaded Afghanistan five years ago, pessimists warned that we Americans would soon find ourselves in a similar situation to what Soviet forces faced in the 1980s. They were wrong - but only about the timing.

The military operation was lean and lethal, and routed the Taliban government in a few weeks. But now, just two years after Hamid Karzai was elected as the country's first democratic leader, the coalition finds itself, like its Soviet predecessors, in control of major cities and towns, very weak in the villages, and besieged by a shadowy insurgency that uses Pakistan as its rear base.

Washington's backing of an enlightened government in Kabul should put the United States in a far stronger position than the Soviets in the fight to win back the hinterland. But it may not, and for a good reason: The involvement of America's other ally in the region, Pakistan, in aiding the Taliban war machine is deeper than is commonly thought.