Don't miss Mother Jones today and The Return of the Poppy Fields in Afganistan

With America's attention elsewhere, the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan is faltering. As a result, poor and desperate farmers are once again turning to the only crop they can count on.

Last year opium production in Afghanistan increased 18 fold to 3,400 tons, leaving the fragile country once again responsible for more than 75 percent of the world's heroin. The harvest this summer is expected to break new records, owing to high prices and new poppy fields in the country's most remote reaches.

This resurgence is among the greatest threats to the country's stability. Ashraf Ghani, the nation's finance minister, recently warned that Afghanistan could soon revert to a "narco-mafia" state. As it stands, the lawless and tribal foes of Hamid Karzai's government outside Kabul have become the country's primary moneymen. Warlords and militias oversaw a crop harvest worth more than $1.2 billion in 2002, according to the United Nations, more than twice as much as the Afghan government's annual operating budget.

Let's get something straight. According to Unicef, children in Iraq are in grave peril and undergoing crisis conditions as a result of the war. Our war in Afganistan (and our failure to provide rebuilding tools and money) has resulted in a huge increase in production of the world's most addictive substance. But the war was a success? Not to us.

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