President Hamid Karzai's lined, care-worn face is as good a record as any of five years of terror and counter-terror in Afghanistan. The strain is plain for all to see. Speaking in Kabul last week, George Bush's favourite Muslim democrat was in tears as he talked about Afghan children killed in the west's latest campaign against the Taliban."We're not as strong as the foreigners ... We can't prevent the terrorists coming from Pakistan. We can't prevent the [Nato] coalition from bombing terrorists. And our children are dying because of that," Mr Karzai said. "Cruelty at the highest level. The cruelty is too much ..." Western countries should be thanked for aiding his country, he added. But "still they can't rescue Afghanistan and its children from the cruelty and the suicide attackers and the hand of the enemy".
Such candour is admissible these days in respect of Iraq - but on Afghanistan, the official line remains bullish. At the Nato summit in Riga, Tony Blair insisted the war was being won despite a bloody autumn for British, Canadian and Dutch troops in Helmand and Kandahar. His view was endorsed by the UN security council on December 7. "We should be careful that we don't overstate this unconventional military challenge," said Nato commander General James Jones.
Similar complacency was on offer last year from the then defence secretary John Reid when the additional British deployment was announced. Since then 4,000 or more people have died in insurgency-related violence. The kill rate is accelerating. Civilian deaths account for roughly one-quarter of the total. There have been over 100 suicide attacks. Drug trafficking is up. And British troops have become the latest foreign detachment to be accused of killing civilians.
Worse is sure to come. The Taliban, its Pakistan-based allies and a gathering host of foreign jihadis are gearing up for a spring offensive that could dwarf what has gone before. "I expect next year to be quite bloody," Ronald Neumann, US ambassador in Kabul, told the New York Times recently. "My sense is the Taliban wants to come back and fight. I don't expect them to win but everyone needs to understand that we are in for a fight."
Reports from Waziristan, in Pakistan's tribal areas, speak of a spreading network of Islamist training camps, schools for suicide bombers and cross-border al-liances to which Islamabad turns a blind eye. "Over the past five years [General Pervez] Musharraf's government has tried first brute force, then appeasement" to counter the Taliban's Pakistan branch. "Both have failed. Islamabad's tactics have only emboldened the pro-Taliban militants," says the independent International Crisis Group. These are the fighters who, when the mountain snow melts, will come looking for blood.
Despite Mr Blair's promises, doubts persist about whether coalition ground forces have sufficient numbers, equipment and air cover. The autumn chorus of complaints from British serving officers and men has been stilled for now. But structural problems remain - and the Riga summit failed to resolve them, 1,000 extra Poles notwithstanding. France, Germany, Spain, and Italy will only unleash their troops for combat in "an emergency". And despite the Baker study group's recommendations and Republican senator John McCain's urgings, the US is plainly reluctant to do more.
"We're losing Afghanistan," warns Democratic senator John Kerry. Little wonder Mr Karzai looks so worried. Mr Blair (and Gordon Brown) probably should be, too. Like previous British efforts, the Third Afghan War has the makings of a debacle. And April is the cruellest month.
Simon Tisdall