THE MAN IN THE PALACE.(Hamid Karzai)

On May 11th, riots broke out in the city of Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan. The violence followed a Newsweek story--which has since been retracted--on new allegations that American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Koran. In the next few days, the protests spread to the capital, Kabul, and throughout the country. In some provincial towns, police fired into crowds. But early on there were signs that the violence had less to do with Newsweek than with Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai.

On the first night of rioting, copies of an anonymous letter circulated in the streets of Kabul. This Night Letter, as it was called, was a vehement exhortation to Afghans to oppose Karzai, whom it accused of being un-Islamic, an ally of the Taliban, and a "U.S.A. servant." The letter said that Karzai had put the interests of his "evil master" ahead of those of Afghans, and it called for leaders who were proven patriots, mujahideen--a synonym, in this case, for members of the Northern Alliance, many of whom are now warlords and regional strongmen--to defy him. The timing was opportune: Karzai was on a trip to Europe, in search of financial backing. His next destination was Washington, where he planned to discuss a pact that would guarantee the United States a long-term military presence in Afghanistan.

Karzai seemed unsure of how to respond. Even as the unrest continued, he stuck to his itinerary and, from Brussels, called the riots a "manifestation of democracy." When he finally arrived home, several days later, he held a press conference, at which he blamed unspecified "enemies of peace" for the violence. He asked, "Who are they who have such enmity with Afghanistan, a nation that is begging for money to build the country and construct buildings, and during the night they come and destroy it?"

The nineteen thousand American and eight thousand nato troops stationed in Afghanistan were placed on high alert, and government officials met with protesters. By the time the violence abated, at least seventeen people were dead, and government buildings and aid-agency offices had been torched. It was the largest display of anti-American feeling since the fall of the Taliban, in late 2001.

The next week, the Times published, in rapid succession, a State Department memorandum saying that Karzai was "unwilling to assert strong leadership" to end drug trafficking--Afghanistan is the source of most of the world's heroin--and a new report on the abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan. The prisoner-abuse story described how American soldiers had beaten two Afghan men to death at Bagram airbase, north of Kabul. One of them was a twenty-two-year-old cabdriver who appeared to have no connection to terrorism. Karzai was in the incongruous position of defending his record as a steadfast ally in the war on drugs while expressing horror at the reports of American abuse.

There are other contradictions. Afghans don't generally question Karzai's good intentions, but they complain about his ineffectiveness and the corruption in his government. Karzai is an odd combination of decency and diffidence, a committed democrat but a regal figure who is comfortable leaving the business of governing to others--including his American advisers. Habiba Sarabi, whom Karzai appointed governor of Bamiyan province, making her Afghanistan's first woman governor, said of him, "He was quite popular during the transitional period. And he still is, because there are no alternatives to him. His character and his democratic inclinations are higher than those of all the others." Unfortunately, she said, "sometimes he makes promises he can't follow up."

When I spoke to Karzai in Kabul, not long before the riots, he told me repeatedly that Afghans had actively sought close ties to the United States. When the Taliban were in power, "it was Afghan people that kept going to see the U.S. and asking it to come and help Afghanistan--and also asking to help the U.S.," he said. "We were the persuaders. We brought the U.S. in. It's been a success. And that's why I got the vote." Now he was confronting the limits of that success, and he appeared surprised and aggrieved.