Sometimes the least likely comparisons can yield the most unexpected results. Take the Islamic State of Afghanistan and the United States of America. Are these states in any way comparable? What is the “state” of each in terms of the other? Let’s start with the names.

Afghanistan has had six name switches in the past 29 years: Kingdom of Afghanistan to Republic of Afghanistan (1973), to Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (1978), back to Republic of Afghanistan (1987), to Islamic State of Afghanistan (1992), to Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (de facto 1996 with the Taliban capture of Kabul), back to Islamic State of Afghanistan (2001).

In these three chaotic decades there have been additional quasi-states within the so-called state of Afghanistan. During the summer of 1986 in the mountains of Kunar province, I was forced off my horse by an Arab who, with his gun in my ribs, demanded our guns in the name of the Islamic Revolutionary State of Afghanistan. Seven years later up north in Mazar-e-Sharif, I found myself in what was, in all but name, an independent state – with a specially accredited diplomatic community, a separately printed currency, and (bottom line) its own not-inconsiderable armed forces. This show was run by Abdul Rashid Dostum, the quintessential Uzbek warlord who is now Afghan Interim Authority deputy minister of defense and who is also currently accused by his nominal boss, Tajik warlord and defense minister Mohammed Fahim, of being in factional cahoots with Iran.

Our state has demonstrated more constancy of nomenclature. The United States has been the USA since July 4, 1776. Its worst test came at Gettysburg in July 1863. Four months later, on that spot, Lincoln spoke of whether a state, based on principles such as ours, “can long endure.” His is the primordial American question. Answer, despite the briefly vigorous Confederate States of America: Yes, thus far.

So in terms of names, the state of our country has proven infinitely more secure than that of moniker-switching Afghanistan. How about in terms of principles or, to be more concrete, the fundamental institutions which safeguard principles and whereby principles are put into effect?

Institutions are not to be taken for granted. The great curse of Afghanistan has been a lack of enduring institutions. Instead its history foregrounds individuals. These come and go – from Alexander the Great to Mullah Omar – in lonely arcs that rise and fall with little of permanent substance to show for their passing. Consider the most recent decades.

From 1880 onward – and especially from 1929 to 1973 (monarchy), even until 1978 (monarchy-related republic) – the institutions of central government began to take shallow root in Afghanistan. These institutions were different from ours, but gradually and partially they became systematized, predictable and accepted. The key concept here is legitimacy. Afghans might or might not have liked the government. They might or might have not been favored financially. Either way, they came to regard the system itself as fairly legitimate, as possessing some inherent validity. Then came the Marxist coup of April 27, 1978.

While “more Groucho than Karl” (to quote the irrepressible and irreplaceable dean of Afghan scholarship Louis Dupree), these stumblebum Marxists did Afghanistan the most serious damage that can possibly be done to a nation-state: They threw into question its hard-won legitimacy. What, suddenly, was Afghanistan? By what virtue did its self-styled leaders presume to lead? By what standard was its currency, the afghani, worth anything?

Let’s take finance first, then politics. When I was first went to Afghanistan (1972) the exchange rate was fairly stable at 37 afghanis to the dollar. Some were rich, many more were poor, but there was a sense of predictable system, of legitimacy. At the time of my last stay (2001) one dollar was worth about 80,000 afghanis – more if you would accept Dostum’s afghanis instead of the northern alliance afghanis, both of which had been printed in Russia. The Taliban, in mortal war with the northern alliance, favored northern alliance afghanis. Pakistani rupees and Iranian rials further revealed my arithmetic incompetence.

To change $100, you’d go downtown with several large bags. You’d watch adroit money changers, as nimble fingered as Vegas card sharks, counting notes faster than the eye could register. You’d believe … well, what would you believe? In my case, that the International Rescue Committee would absorb whatever losses, that my U.S. passport would get me back across the Pakistan border, and that my round trip air ticket would get me home again to a world of transparent calculations and monthly statements that meant something. My country’s financial system, if not that of Taliban Afghanistan, had legitimacy.

As recently as last month, the revived central bank in Kabul had one computer, one telephone and one heater. All currency reserves had skipped town with the Taliban. Tax revenues were essentially nil. Several million dollars had to be hand-carried into Afghanistan to recompense government workers unpaid for six months or, in some cases, for six years. But note this fact: Paid or unpaid, many of those workers kept coming to work. Some, doubtless, had nothing else to do. Others believed that, someday and somehow, they’d be paid. They believed.

Now they will be paid, and some sort of currency stabilization will, God willing, take hold. Thanks, correctly, will go to outside sources, primarily the United States, but outsiders by themselves are insufficient. Ultimately, the afghani will be worth something again if and when Afghan people believe that it’s worth something.

Now politics or, more specifically, governance. As with finance, all the old institutions were essentially obliterated. Here, too, it’s start from scratch. As specified in December’s initial Bonn Agreement, the Interim Authority headed by Hamid Karzai has now appointed a 21-person Special Independent Commission for the Convening of the Emergency Loya Jirga (national assembly). That body, once convened this spring by former King Zahir Shah, will establish a Transitional Authority which, supplanting the government which Karzai now heads, will lead to a Constitutional Loya Jirga and a new Constitution for Afghanistan. “Qadam ba qadam,” as Afghans say: Step by step.

Democracy? Despite grandiose claims, “democracy,” as we understand it, has never existed above the local level in Afghanistan. It may not be best for Afghanistan now or in two years or in ten years. (See “Don’t wait on the Big D,” BDN, Dec. 10.) Far more important are transparency, deliberation and constancy of purpose.

What then can be said about the state of post-Taliban Afghanistan in terms of finance and governance? That the institutions of both, never strong, must now begin again. That institutional development will take great wisdom and patience. But – here’s the main point – that more and more Afghans now support this process of institutional development. In terms of belief in embryonic institutions, the state of Afghanistan is stronger now than most inhabitants can ever remember.

“Never stronger,” said President Bush about the state of our own state three weeks ago. In some ways, clearly, he’s correct. We rallied after 9/11. The twin towers may have collapsed, but our spirits did not. Our military has stood tall. Our allies have stood by us. Lesser nations would have wilted themselves and been abandoned by others. Not us. In those regards, “Never stronger.”

To compare Afghanistan and the United States is, by surface standards, an absurdly lopsided exercise, so much so that both writer and readers can lose balance and take a tumble. It is not my intention to booby trap an already tricky terrain. Even so, let’s return for a moment to institutions, especially financial and political institutions. Without secure institutions of this sort, nations, whether or great or small, simply cannot long endure. Afghanistan’s institutions, weak at the best of times, have been next to nonexistent in recent decades. Now – slowly, awkwardly, erratically and with indispensable American assistance – those institutions are getting a wee bit stronger. Afghans are beginning to believe.

What about us? We’ve done well in a small war, but what about institutions? What’s the state of our financial institutions in the midst of Enron and, worse, Arthur Andersen? What’s the state of our political institutions after November 2000? Are we more or less confident in our own essential American institutions?

Dr. Whitney Azoy, a cultural anthropologist and former U.S. diplomat in Kabul, has worked for 30 years with Afghanistan and the Muslim world.