After more than two decades of lurching from bloody tribal warfare to Taliban oppression, Afghanistan now has a chance at freedom without anarchy, order without fascism. The interim government cobbled together in Bonn after nine days of furious negotiations is not perfect, but it is a miracle.

Under the United Nations plan, this new government is designed for a single purpose – to lead Afghanistan into the post-Taliban era, a joyous prospect after that joyless regime. The 30-member cabinet will govern for just six months, until former King Mohammad Zaher Shah convenes a traditional tribal council, which will form a more complete transitional government and plan for elections within two years.

The Bonn conference opened to gloomy predictions of failure – Afghanistan, held conventional wisdom, is too divided by ethnic strife and too acclimated to violence for power sharing to work. Despite an attempt by former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the Northern Alliance, to reclaim office, conference delegates representing the country’s four major ethnic groups held out for something better than the leadership that was so inept it once made the Taliban an attractive alternative.

The interim government will be headed by Hamid Karzai, who has precisely the right credentials for the task ahead. He is an anti-Taliban military commander, yet he is a Pashtun, the country’s largest ethnic group and the group from which all Taliban come. Although several cabinet positions remain to be filled, it is expected that about half will go to the Northern Alliance and that the total composition will strive for ethnic balance, the essential condition for this government to work. The cabinet includes two women. Although two of 30 hardly is proportional representation, it is a strong signal that the Taliban’s repression of women is ended and that women will have their rightful place in the government to come.

The agreement also secures billions in promised U.N. aid to reconstruct the country. The developed nations can greatly increase the odds that this new Afghanistan survives by delivering hundreds of millions in immediate and effective emergency relief aid. Even larger amounts will be required long-term for the complete rebuilding of this country virtually demolished by 23 years of unrelenting warfare.

This moment in history presents the United States with a precious opportunity to gain a grateful ally in an important region and to mend relations with the entire Muslim world and it makes the selfish spending being considered in economic stimulus legislation before Congress look small and petty. Being partner to the rebuilding of a society that not long ago seemed a lost cause, helping create a new nation based upon the principles of liberty, democracy and justice is so much more grand and worthy.