Afghanistan's Government: "A Vast Criminal Enterprise"

Dexter Filkins compares Afghanistan's notoriously corrupt government to Egypt under Mubarak:

On corruption [in Afghanistan], the American strategy isn’t clear. The American military appears to be succeeding in clearing the Taliban from large swaths of southern Afghanistan. But then what? At some point, the Afghans themselves have to take overthat is, the Afghan government. Without a government that is legitimatethat serves the peopleit’s hard to imagine that the hard-won American gains can ever stick.

Which brings us back to Egypt. For thirty years, the United States supported a government that was predatory and corrupt. And so are we in Kabul. After Tahrir Square, do we really think the Afghans won’t notice?