The election is over and it was a charade. A fortnight ago, Western leaders pushed Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, into a second round of voting to wash out the stain of wholesale fraud (1m-odd votes, most in Mr Karzai’s favour were declared invalid). Now Barack Obama and others have rushed to congratulate Mr Karzai on winning another five years. Never mind that he was unchallenged because his rival, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew, complaining that officials who oversaw the cheating had not been sacked. Never mind that those same Afghan officials quickly ruled Mr Karzai the winner, despite doubts about the legal process.

Many in Afghanistan were relieved to be spared a second poll in the face of Taliban threats, voter indifference and the approaching winter. Westerners coping with the crisis were also relieved that they had averted, for now, street protests by Dr Abdullah’s supporters, which would have risked political violence and open Pushtun-Tajik rivalry.

But that is small comfort. The election has been a debacle for both Afghanistan and the West. It cost $300m, but it has deepened the country’s crisis. Since the vote, more than 170 NATO soldiers have been killed. Ever more Westerners understandably ask why their compatriots must keep dying to prop up the inept and corrupt Mr Karzai. Opinion in Britain is souring fast. This week five soldiers killed by an Afghan policeman added to the country’s heavy casualties.

Afghans, too, are losing faith in the West. The American military commander in Kabul, General Stanley McChrystal, has asked for a big reinforcement — rumoured to be about 40,000 extra troops, which would make NATO’s deployment bigger than the Soviet Union’s ill-fated one — to “gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum”. He says that without more Western troops and massively larger Afghan forces, more Afghans could throw in their lot with the Taliban. If so, the West will fail. His counter-insurgency plan seeks to protect the Afghan population and win its allegiance to a legitimate Afghan government. That is why this election has been so damaging: Mr Karzai’s legitimacy is what has suffered most.

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