GUNS AND POPPIES

In the morass that is Afghanistan, not just the Taliban are
flourishing. So too is opium production, which increasingly finances
the group's activities. There is no easy way to end this narcotics
threat, a symptom of wider instability. Even a wise and coordinated
plan of attack would take years to bear real results. But the United
States and the rest of the international community are failing to
develop one. They must work harder, smarter and more cooperatively to
rescue this narco-state.

The scope of the problem is mind-numbing. Opium production mushroomed
in 2006 and 2007, and Afghanistan now supplies 93 percent of the
world's heroin, with the bulk going to users in Europe and Russia.
According to official figures, the narcotics trade rakes in about $4
billion a year, which is about half of Afghanistan's gross domestic
product. It strengthens the extremist forces that American and NATO
troops are fighting and dying to defeat; it undermines the Afghan
state they are trying to build; and it poisons drug users across
Europe, where many people do not see Afghanistan as their problem and
leaders are shamefully ignoring the connection.

Last week, the United Nations reported an alarming new development:
Afghan drug lords are recruiting foreign chemists, mostly from Turkey,
Pakistan and Iran, to help turn raw opium into highly refined heroin.
Doing so adds value and lethality to the product they export.

American, European, Afghan and United Nations officials have sabotaged
their mission by continuing to bicker over why poppy cultivation has
skyrocketed, what to do about it and who should act. In a particularly
damning indictment in The Times Magazine, Thomas Schweich, a former
State Department official, blamed corrupt Afghan officials, internal
policy divisions and the reluctance of American and NATO military to
take on counternarcotics roles, as much as the Taliban.

Mr. Schweich should have pointed a finger at President Bush for the
fundamental failure in Afghanistan. Mr. Bush put too few resources
into the country after 9/11, then left the aftermath to NATO and
various warlords while America shifted focus to the disastrous war of
choice in Iraq. The results: a Taliban and Al Qaeda resurgence coupled
with historic poppy crops.

It is very good news that 20 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces may soon be
free of poppy cultivation, but that means production is overwhelmingly
concentrated in the south, largely in Helmand Province, where the
Taliban are strongest and the government is weakest.

Mr. Schweich's main recommendation -- to aggressively eradicate poppy
crops by aerial spraying -- is politically untenable and of
questionable value. Other things can be done, or done better,
including building a criminal justice system that can prosecute major
drug traffickers and having American and NATO forces play a more
robust role in interdiction. The Afghan and American governments have
broken ground on a new airport and agricultural center in Helmand --
an encouraging attempt to help farmers shift from poppies to food crops.

Allegations that President Hamid Karzai protects officials and
warlords in the trade are troubling. Washington and its allies must
press him to address this problem. They also should seize assets and
ban visas for major traffickers who have homes outside
Afghanistan.

Longer term, the answer lies in a consistent, integrated and
well-financed plan to establish security throughout Afghanistan, put
kingpins in jail, develop a market economy and a functioning
government in Kabul, and rapidly expand incentives for smaller farmers
to stop growing poppies. It is all one more daunting Bush
administration legacy that will be left for the next president to fix.