WHEN THE Taliban tried and failed to kill President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan at a military parade Sunday in the Afghan capital, Kabul, the Islamist guerrilla group showed that it can operate almost everywhere in that country. And Karzai's American-trained police and security forces are still not professional enough to keep Taliban hit men wearing suicide vests more than 300 yards from their head of state.
Nevertheless, the Sunday assault does not mean there has been any significant change in the balance of forces between the Taliban and Karzai's NATO-backed government. This was at least the fourth foiled effort to assassinate Karzai since 2002. It is nearly impossible to prevent a few determined killers from getting close enough to a public figure like Karzai to fire off a few rounds or blow themselves up. Such is the nature of asymmetrical warfare.
The Taliban may have pulled off an ostentatious public relations coup by sending Karzai and his foreign guests scurrying for cover (and killing three innocent bystanders, among them a 14-year-old boy). Yet the Islamist movement is no closer to seizing power today than it has been for the last seven years. Indeed, the attack on Afghan and foreign dignitaries commemorating the fall of the last Soviet-backed puppet regime in Afghanistan may be read as a sign of the Taliban's frustration with a war it can prolong indefinitely but cannot win.
The assassination attempt also demonstrates the fundamentalists' rejection of the legitimacy of Karzai's elected government. That's the crude message in such an act of political theater. But the act may also betray Taliban leaders' impatience at fighting a protracted guerrilla war against a government backed by NATO troops and air power and at their own inability to capture Kabul and take power. Insofar as the killing of Karzai could accomplish any real-world objective, it would be to open up a short-cut to power for the Taliban.
Until now, impatience has been more of a problem for the United States and its NATO allies than for the Taliban. Chances are that is still the case. Because of the mistakes Karzai's international backers made after the toppling of the Taliban in late 2001 - chief among them the failure to fund job-creating infrastructure projects through the central government, disarm warlords' militias, and help farmers replace poppies with other cash crops - Karzai and his foreign supporters have no choice now but patiently to wage a long war against the Taliban.
And since Karzai plans to run for reelection, his supporters must do a better job of protecting him.
