The U.S. military's just-completed campaign to take Marja, a city in southern Afghanistan, cost eight American lives and killed uncounted Afghan fighters and civilians, so it is worth a close look.

The two-week campaign was aimed at sweeping the Taliban out of a city of some 80,000 in the center of a farming area. The attack was carried out by 15,000 Americans, other NATO forces, mostly British, and Afghans. As of this week it is apparently over, although many improvised explosive devices and mines, and some snipers, are still around.

The Marja campaign is billed as the first carried out by the augmented U.S. forces in Afghanistan, which are set to go up to 98,000 in number under President Barack Obama's new policy and under the leadership of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the relatively new commander of U.S. forces there.

If the Marja effort is considered a success, the U.S. military intends to replicate it across Afghanistan, including in Kandahar, the second largest city in Afghanistan, believed to contain the hard core of the Taliban.

So what can be said about the Marja campaign?

1) It was long and hard. Two weeks seems a long time to take a city of that size with a sophisticated force that included B-1 bombers, fighter aircraft and helicopter gunships. Part of what made it take a while was the political objective -- to avoid alienating civilians during the military campaign so they wouldn't hate the occupying forces, including the Afghan National Army, and miss the (at least temporarily) departed Taliban.

2) In spite of all, civilians were killed in Marja. So were Taliban fighters, who were driven out, although it remains to be seen over a long period of time whether they departed largely under duress or deliberately retreated to live and fight another day.

3) The Afghan national forces involved in the Marja campaign are not considered to have fought very well. Some were killed, but American Marines did the heavy lifting. This could be considered normal for the early days in the U.S. and NATO effort to mount an effective Afghan national force. Or it could be considered a potentially fatal flaw in the U.S. strategy to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan and replace them with national forces by July of next year.

It is important to remember that for the Afghans this is a civil war, in which the Afghan army is fighting on the side of the foreigners. How would it feel, exactly, to see highly armed outsiders killing one's countrymen, sometimes including women, children and old people? It's easy for us as Americans to forget this aspect of the Afghan conflict.

4) The U.S., NATO and Afghan forces that finally took Marja brought with them a new Afghan administration for the city, what Gen. McChrystal rather unfortunately described as "a government in a box."

We'll forgive him the bad choice of words, evoking foreign conqueror-imposed puppet governments across the ages, from Napoleon's relatives to Reconstruction to Japanese Manchukuo to Ukraine during World War II. The real problem is that the government of President Hamid Karzai, now taking control in Marja, does not command a lot of respect there or elsewhere. It wasn't exactly the liberation of Paris from the Nazis in 1944.

One reason for Afghans' generally dim view of America's ally, Mr. Karzai, is that he almost entirely lacks legitimacy. His election as president last August involved widespread fraud. His most recently executed fraud "quad" was a rewriting of the Afghan election law to permit him to choose all by himself the members of the Election Complaint Commission. The majority were previously foreigners, chosen by the United Nations.

Mr. Karzai considered the move to be the Afghanization of the electoral process. That it certainly is, but it will also certainly make his efforts to cook the upcoming Afghan parliamentary elections, expected in the summer, much easier.

The low credibility of Mr. Karzai's government mightily damages the prospects for success of Gen. McChrystal's newly installed "government in a box."

6) Yet another problem for the United States in Afghanistan loomed last week in the Netherlands. The Dutch have 2,000 troops in southern Afghanistan. The Dutch government collapsed when it sought from the parliament authority to extend their stay. The government was a coalition of parties and the stiff opposition of some of them to further involvement in the war forced its resignation, to be followed by elections, probably in June.

The last straw probably was a particularly horrendous case of Afghan civilians being killed in a U.S. air attack in Oruzgan province, where the Dutch troops are stationed. At the same time, opposition to what most Europeans consider an American war is widespread in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and other NATO countries.

7) Finally, the three large lessons for the United States in the Marja campaign are, first, that if we pursue Mr. Obama's new approach, it could take a very long time. Second, the Afghan government, in the name of which we are "liberating" places like Marja, is a weak reed, indeed. Third, even firm allies like the Dutch, responding to popular distaste for the affair, will over time continue to slip off the train when they get the chance.

The central question raised by the Marja campaign, which must be addressed by Mr. Obama, is, do its lessons show his approach to be still worth pursuing?

Or could we learn from Marja that his approach costs more in American blood, other treasure and long-term commitment than it is worth?

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