DELHI — ‘Afghanistan is in a much better position now than it ever was before as a nation.’ So said Richard Boucher, America’s assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, on Thursday August 2nd. If that were true, the meetings scheduled on August 4th and 5th between President George Bush and Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai would be an uneventful affair-a matter of mutual congratulation on a hard job well-done. On his inaugural visit to Camp David, Mr Karzai might even find time for a bracing walk in the surrounding Maryland hills. That would make a nice change from the heavily-fortified compound in Kabul where he spends most of his time cooped up. On a rare, recent venture outside, Mr Karzai was lucky to survive a Taliban rocket attack-at least the third assassination attempt since he took charge of Afghanistan, under heavy American steerage, in 2001. Others have been less fortunate. In 18 months of appalling and worsening violence in Afghanistan, some 6,000 people have been killed-some 1,500 of them civilians. This is despite a big increase over the past year in the number of NATO peacekeepers in Afghanistan. There are currently 35,500 of these troops, in […]