WASHINGTON: The past year since American forces swooped into Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime and hunt down Osama bin Laden and members of his Al Qaeda terrorist network has been an eye- opening experience for US President George W. Bush and his administration.

It is still not certain that all of its lessons have been learned.

Before the Afghan operation (and before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington), Bush had said that one of the principles he had adopted in light of previous US military operations overseas was that the United States would no longer engage in “nation building”.

This stance was a presumed reference to such debacles as the American involvement in Somalia. After the death of 18 elite US Rangers in a fire fight, American forces were quickly withdrawn, and Somalia returned to its former state of near-anarchy.

Once on the ground in Afghanistan, US troops found themselves fighting the Taliban government and isolated bands of Al Qaeda fighters. When the Taliban’s leadership fled in disarray in the wake of US airstrikes, Afghanistan returned to its tradition of warlordism, tinged with the desire for revenge and traces of religious fanaticism.

US military leaders decided that there was no alternative to building something like a nation, and so the weight of Washington and its chief allies was put behind a moderate, Hamid Karzai. After several near-escapes from assassination, President Karzai remains in power, with a US State Department bodyguard, but only so long as he has the backing of the United States and its chief allies.

They have come to the realization that to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a nest of unrest and a haven for terrorists, it has to have the trappings of a nation — a working representative government and a nuts-and-bolts infrastructure, such as a usable road network and a predictable water supply.

So much for no nation building.

Since then, the Bush administration has put forward its National Strategic Policy statement, which essentially says that the United States has the right and sometimes the obligation to act on its own, if necessary, by pre-emptive action. But Afghanistan — where the British, Canadians and Germans have been pivotal — has been an example that the United States alone has neither the resources nor the stomach, for a Lone Ranger approach to world problems.

The German government, among others, has said that it is not prepared to go along with every American initiative, such as a pre- emptive strike against Iraq, unless there is some kind of consultations beforehand.

Some diplomats — including former secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger — said they worry that the Bush administration’s needless breast-beating about pre-emptive strikes is breaking down the Western alliance and that Germany is in danger of returning to its pre-World War-I state of being a Central European power, rather than a trans- Atlantic alliance partner.

Eagleburger, a Republican Party member who disagrees with many of Bush’s current Republican advisers, said he believes that the president’s inability to absorb lessons of such operations as Afghanistan — where international support and cooperation was crucial — could cause the entire international system of balances to teeter.—dpa