Clearly, the fight against illicit drug trade in Afghanistan is being lost, and that development threatens U.S. and NATO’s ability to quell the Taliban and strike terrorism where it lives.

A former U.S. anti-drug official who monitored Afghanistan’s drug trade until June, said the U.S.-backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai “played the U.S. like a fiddle” helping cronies get rich off the Afghan drug trade while the U.S. and others were pouring billions into the country.

Thomas Schweich, a senior State Department counter narcotics official, said in a op-ed piece to run in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine that Karzai was playing both sides of the effort to rid Afghanistan of its drug trade.

“The U.S. would spend billions of dollars on infrastructure development; the U.S. and its allies would fight the Taliban; Karzai’s friends could get richer off the drug trade,” Schweich wrote.

U.S. State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos didn’t answer the allegations but defended Washington’s support of Karzai, saying we know there “is a corruption issue in Afghanistan but we’re working with the sovereign government.”

It appears more pressure is needed on Karzai himself. Schweich accused him of an unwillingness to move against drug lords in the south where his political base is strong. Those drug lords are supplying the Taliban insurgency with a booming drug trade that is financing the Taliban operations.

According to the Associated Press, Schweich wrote: “Karzai had Taliban enemies who profited from drugs but he had even more supporters who did.” Schweich used to serve as coordinator for counter-narcotics and justice reform for Afghanistan. He was based in Washington.

The Afghan government hadn’t responded to the accusation by Schweich. But facts also suggest that whoever might be involved in the drug trade, Afghanistan’s growing opium crop is burgeoning, providing 93 percent of the world’s opium, the primary ingredient used in heroin.

United Nation’s figures show that in 2003, opium in Afghanistan was grown on about 198,000 acres. By 2007, that poppy-growing land had risen to 476,900 acres. That was enough to produce 9,000 tons of opium, which could make about 880 tons of heroin with a street value of $4 billion, according to the United Nations.

NATO and U.S. commanders have been hesitant to get involved in the drug wars, saying it would alienate tribesmen they are trying to work with and such an alienation might increase support for the Taliban throughout Afghanistan.

But clearly, something must be done. In Iraq, the military literally went through villages handing out suitcases of money to local sheiks. It provided their people with legitimate ways to buy the basics of life. It’s a strategy that military officials and policymakers on both sides say has worked. Some similar strategy might be employed in Afghanistan.

The threat of the Taliban and Islamic extremists taking hold once again of Afghanistan as a base for terrorism should be thwarted at all costs. The need to act is more urgent now.