Electing an Afghan leader hasn't been a pretty process

Watching the construction of a government in Afghanistan is something akin to watching sausage being made, to paraphrase Otto von Bismarck. It's not a pretty sight.
Battles of will between ethnic groups, tribes and warlords are ugly, but not as ugly as some of their past battles. Still, ethnic, geographic and religious differences -- punctuated by the question, "Where were you in the battle for liberation from the Soviets?" -- make for a more contentious get-together than, say, our Continental Congress.
Of course there weren't 1,500 to 1,800 delegates jammed into a tent for the Continental Congress as there are at this loya jirga. (But then, there were no women at the Continental Congress, and it wasn't televised to the nation, as this gathering is.)
However strained the process may be, it now appears certain that Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's interim leader, will be elected. After ex-king Mohammad Zaher Shah and former President Burnahuddin Rabbani withdrew, there were no credible rivals to Karzai.
Karzai, well educated, well spoken and well traveled, has been successful in both business and politics in the past. He became the interim leader after the fall of the Taliban.
It will take all of his considerable abilities to hold Afghanistan together. Even his election by the loya jirga does not guarantee the loyal support of the various factions loose in the land.
It will take all of his international connections to bring back to Afghanistan the billions of dollars in foreign aid needed to build a new nation.
Need for vigilance
And it will take vigilance within Afghanistan and from without to guard against a resurgence of the Islamic fundamentalists who controlled the nation and its people, relegating women to less than second-class status. The Taliban enslaved their countrymen, thumbed their noses at the Western world and gave succor to Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida, which was ultimately its undoing.
It is impossible to watch the painful process of the building of a democracy in Afghanistan without wondering if there are lessons to be learned.
There are. Chief among them is the need for a nation to have a shared culture and identity that supercedes ethnic, racial and religious differences. The United States has historically had that, and it should guard against its loss.
There are all kinds of hyphenated Americans. German-Americans. Irish-Americans. African-Americans. Hispanic-Americans. Christian-Americans. Jewish-Americans. Northerners and Southerners. The list could go on for pages. But those subcultures must always be secondary. Anyone who doubts that need only look at Afghanistan for the latest example of why.