WASHINGTON -- Disturbing new reports that Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has become increasingly disenchanted with U.S. policy and now believes the Taliban will ultimately prevail seem all the more reason to question any long-range involvement in that hapless cultural nightmare of a country. As if there weren't any number of other problems that would bring one to the conclusion that we should end this sooner than later.

The New York Times startlingly reported that during a meeting with members of his government, including the head of intelligence, about a rocket attack on a peace conference that Karzai expressed his opinion that the Taliban not only weren't responsible, but that the Americans might have been. According the Times, only minutes after the exchange, Intelligence Director Amrullah Saleh and Interior Minister Hanif Atmar resigned, in what was described as the most serious defection since Karzai became president nine years ago.

There has been no secret about the disaffection between the Obama administration and the Afghan chief executive, which seems to have grown substantially despite President Obama's efforts to patch up hard feelings over U.S. concern about corruption surrounding Karzai's re-election. The meeting here between the two men reportedly failed to dispel the misgivings of both men -- Karzai's apparent belief that the Taliban ultimately would prevail over U.S. and NATO policy and Obama's fear that the deep-seated corruption in the Karzai

government is undercutting U.S. efforts.

The Times said that Saleh and other Afghan officials reported that Karzai has been pressed to strike his own deal with the Taliban and Pakistan and that Karzai's "maneuvering" involved "secret" negotiations outside U.S. and NATO purview as he looks for a way to protect his government from what he believes will be a U.S. failure to do so.

As shocking as this may seem, why should anyone be surprised? This has been an uneasy alliance for some time now and it has been exacerbated by U.S. beliefs that Karzai forces stole at least one million votes to keep him in office and by Obama's announcement that he would begin drawing down U.S. troops in the summer of 2011.

The entire scene appears to have become less tenable with the delay of a U.S. military effort in Kandahar province, the Taliban stronghold, because of a dispute over the authority of Karzai's half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who is described by the national press here as the strongest figure in southern Afghanistan. Intelligence figures apparently failed to persuade Gen. Stanley McChrystal that President Karzai should remove his brother from his position.

It all seems so much like one of those "I guess you had to be there" scenarios but with certainly no assurance you would be able to understand the complexities even then. Under the circumstances, one would have trouble denying the inevitability of U.S. failure in this country, which of course, would add it to a long list of historical blunders by would-be "saviors," including the British and most recently, the Russians. Without great care, Afghanistan could become much more a morass than Vietnam, with huge expenditures of life and money. It was a beginning of the end for the Soviet Union.

If all these reports are true, and there is little reason to believe they are not, the White House and the Pentagon should begin to reassess the importance of a continued presence there. Americans are increasingly wondering why they should care about a nation whose economy is rooted in the raising of poppies to feed the international drug trade.

Even with the discovery of huge deposits of minerals that could transform the Afghan economy, it remains a place of cultural hell. Whether or not our national security is at stake here is problematic given our inability to find Osama bin Laden there or in nearby Pakistan's tribal regions, the initial reason for our being there.

With our own growing fiscal problems, it is seriously time to consider cutting the horrendous costs of this expedition. If Karzai has lost faith in our ability to keep his government alive, then perhaps we should accommodate him and leave. Americans' lives should be sacrificed only when there is a clear and present danger.

E-mail Dan K. Thomasson, former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service, at thomassondan@aol.com.