Although the bombing and fighting in Afghanistan are not quite over, the endgame has clearly begun. It is now only a matter of time before the Taliban are history, and the reconstruction of our devastated neighbour will start in earnest.

In retrospect, despite the death and destruction rained down on the unfortunate Afghans by the Americans, it is clear there was no alternative. This may be an unpopular viewpoint, but there are times when only foreign intervention can rid a people of vicious, repressive rulers. Indeed, a moral argument can be built up in favour of a short, sharp military action to free the citizens of a country from an unacceptable government.

For instance, had the international community intervened in time in Cambodia's killing fields, the hateful Khmer Rouge may not have been able to slaughter as many people as they did. Or had that clown Idi Amin been booted out of Uganda earlier, he might not have inflicted as much damage to the country's economy and people as he did. Many more examples of such blood-thirsty and destructive leadership can be placed on this list, and many of them are still in the business of killing and torturing their own hapless citizens.

We can now add the gruesome Taliban to this roll of dishonour. Irrespective of the revulsion we may feel at the sight of a helpless country being pounded for weeks by a far stronger power can we honestly say that the Afghans could have overthrown Mullah Omar, Osama Bin Laden, and their nasty followers by themselves? Surely there must be some international mechanism that can act as a check against the excesses committed by such governments from hell.

Many knee-jerk liberals will protest against such "interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states." But what about the interference of countries like Pakistan that helped the Taliban's rise to power in the first place? The Soviets paid a heavy price for their invasion; indeed, many observers ascribe the implosion of the USSR (remember those once-familiar initials?) to the hammering its army suffered in Afghanistan.

But apart from the hundreds of deluded Pakistani volunteers who fought for the Taliban and paid with their lives for their fanatical ardour, those in the Pakistani establishment who are responsible for our foolish Afghan policy are sitting pretty. No court of enquiry or public opprobrium for them. Nor am I aware of any resignations from the ISI or the Foreign Office. Actually, I would be quite happy with a hara kiri or two.

Although we are now scrambling on to the bandwagon of a "broad-based government" in Kabul, we are doing so because we have no choice in the matter. The best we can hope for now is a diluted Northern Alliance regime next door that is not too vengeful for our past acts of omission and commission. Not, of course, that the victors of Kabul and Konduz are angels themselves: they qualified eminently for B-52 strikes during their reign of terror from 1992 to 1996.

However, our policy makers can draw some comfort from the fact that whoever forms the next government in Kabul will have to deal with Islamabad whether they want to or not: as General Musharraf noted in a recent TV interview, most Afghan imports pass through Pakistan, and many Pukhtoon tribesmen (who constitute nearly 40 per cent of the Afghan population) have kinsmen across the border. In all probability, many of the goods and services needed for the reconstruction of our neighbour will either originate in Pakistan, or our port, rail and road network will be the conduit for their delivery in Afghanistan.

This Afghan dependence on good ties with Pakistan has existed for years, and would have ensured stable relations between the two countries after the Soviets pulled out. But instead of being satisfied, our leaders and planners got the bit between their teeth and went for broke in the expectation that as the backers of the best-armed group of Mujahideen, they would be the sole power-brokers in Kabul. This hubris strained our relations with Tehran and further antagonized Moscow.

As the infighting between rival groups exploded into open civil war and Kabul saw fighting far worse than when the Soviets were in control, the ISI under Benazir Bhutto saw the Taliban as its best chance to call the shots in Afghanistan. Training and supplying this medieval movement, the Pakistani establishment led it to victory as it swept to power virtually without a fight. Initially, it imposed a spell of welcome peace on a war-weary nation, but soon its bizarre and brutal interpretation of Islam sent a wave of revulsion around the world. In particular, its cruel treatment of women made it an international pariah.

The Pakistani government should have known that their clients in Kabul were not only out of control, but also over the top when they went ahead and destroyed the priceless giant Buddhas in Bamiyan despite international protests. Our spooks and mandarins were disconcerted to discover that they exercised absolutely zero control over Mullah Omar. Instead of distancing themselves from the Taliban at that point, we continued supporting them, pleading with the rest of the world to "engage" with them.

Whether our establishment is capable of learning from its mistakes is doubtful; but in the changed scenario and under the glare of international publicity, one can only hope that it stops playing power games in other countries and focuses on our many problems. Another lesson is to be learned by our Islamic parties and clerics: utopia is not to be created by enshrouding women, insisting on long beards, and turning our backs on education and reason. Neither logic, nor our faith requires such a return to the past. But I suspect that our jihadis will brood over their reverses in Afghanistan and plot their revenge. Meanwhile, hundreds of young Pakistanis, sent to Afghanistan as cannon fodder, will never return. But their bearded, self-styled leaders will not be held to account for all these unnecessary deaths.

As the anti-terror rhetoric gets shriller and shriller, we need to address the problem of state terrorism directed against a country's own citizens. It is immoral and cowardly to hide behind the hackneyed notion of "non-interference". Just because a people are too cowed down by repressive regimes does not mean they should not be helped by the international community: if victims of natural calamities can be given assistance, why should not the sufferers of man-made disasters be helped to overthrow corrupt and cruel governments?