ACCORDING to a senior commander, the level of fighting which NATO is dealing with in Afghanistan is now higher than that for coalition forces in Iraq. To put it mildly, this development was clearly unexpected. On Saturday NATO chiefs met in Warsaw with some urgency — if not panic — to attempt to increase both the numbers and equipment of the 10,000-strong force. NATO’s problems stem in large measure from Operation Medusa and the attempt to bring Kabul’s rule to the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. Stunned senior officers and planners admit they had not expected the intensity with which Taleban and Al-Qaeda elements would resist the NATO forces. If true, as it certainly seems to be, this marks yet another serious failure of intelligence which led Washington and its allies into very perilous strategic errors.

There are two key factors which NATO’s planners should have thought carefully about before they even considered the mission. The first is the historic truth that such is the landscape and the culture of Afghanistan that it is custom-built for resistance and rebellion. Whoever hold the towns and call themselves the country’s government become a sitting target for anyone with a grudge, be they warlords, drug mafias, Taleban or just angry tribesmen. The phenomenon that was the Taleban defeated the bickering warlords who had driven out the Russians and overthrown the puppet communist government. But when they themselves took the reins of power, they in turn became the targets. There was never any chance that they could resist the temporarily united Afghan forces gathered against them in 2001, least of all when massive US airpower was pounding their positions to dust in advance of every attack. The second key factor is that since Mullah Omar created the Taleban in 1994, allegedly disgusted at the corruption and misrule of the warlords, ferocious courage has always been more important than formal military training. This, and the crucial fact that Kandahar is the home province of Mullah Omar, meant the level of resistance ought to have been expected, not simply from Taleban but also from ordinary Pathans whose strict Pakhtunwali code of honor causes them to resist incursions — especially foreign incursions — into their tribal land.

Therefore as in Iraq, it must be asked if in Afghanistan the foreign forces really know whom it is they are fighting and what the issues actually are. It is not simply about opium production or getting aid and infrastructure to the people, though had the latter arrived faster and in greater quantities, the Karzai government might now be much stronger.

Typically however, NATO governments need simple, good guy-bad guy analyses for their voters. The very naming of the Medusa operation — to the few who understand the allusion — suggests cutting off an evil, snake-wreathed head. And success is already being measured by Afghan body counts — a very precise 510 by yesterday, though strangely NATO seems unable to say exactly how many civilians are killed when a house is accidentally bombed.