One problem beyond the miseries of the economy is going to bedevil President-elect Barack Obama: the Afghan war. Even while the Iraq situation is vastly improving, the conflict in Afghanistan is in a downward spiral that brooks no optimism. We're losing it.

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, writing in The New York Times, cites leaks of a recent National Intelligence Estimate showing that we are losing because of "a lack of Afghan competence; a half-hearted Pakistani commitment to the fight; a shortage of American, NATO and International Security Assistance Force troops; too few aid workers; and nation-building programs that were designed for peacetime and are rife with inefficiency and fraud."

Lakhdar Brahimi, who was special representative of the U.N. for Afghanistan from 2001 through 2004, writing in The Washington Post , says: "Afghan hopes have given way to despair, resignation and anger. ... The government is losing ground every day to insurgents and other outlaws who now control at least a third of the country."

And an international think tank, the International Council on Security and Development, says Taliban militants now have a fixed presence in nearly three-quarters of Afghanistan, a sharp increase from last year.

While the president-elect has repeatedly called for moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, the Pentagon has noted that it will take 12 to 18 months to deploy the more than 20,000 additional troops that it already planned to send there. Meanwhile, the Taliban attacks continue to build.

So, what to do? Are we going to fight to the end, whatever that possibly means? Are we going to negotiate with the Taliban? Can you negotiate with the Taliban?

New York University's Barnett Rubin, a longtime Afghan sage, urges that the Obama administration spur a political solution among Afghanistan's warring tribes and even call for a more regional approach: For instance, turning to neighboring Iran for assistance in negotiating with the Taliban. There are signs the Obama team has been listening to this advice.

Meanwhile, the war goes on, and it could easily come to obsess the new administration.

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