Roger Cohen: Afghanistan at the tipping point

Since the Taliban's fall in 2001, more than 4 million Afghan refugees have come home in one of the biggest post-1945 returns of people. About 38 percent of school students are girls, up from zero. Roads, clinics, mine-clearing and several million cellphones are changing Afghan lives. --Such transformation may seem a decent return on about $22 billion of American investment since 2002. A further $5.6 billion of U.S. taxpayers' money will likely be spent in 2008. The strategic aim is a stable Afghanistan no longer up for rent from one-eyed mullahs as terror's launch pad.