What's gone wrong with the war? So far, four weeks in, nothing much. No disasters, beyond a near-botched small raid that left behind a slice of helicopter and an American soldier's foot - hardly Arnhem. Opinion polls right across Europe continue to support the war. Far from wobbling, EU leaders were angered at having offers of troops rejected. How is the war going? We know bald facts. Some 7,000 bombs and missiles have been dropped on the 118 designated targets, missing six of them. Cluster bombs have been used against five targets - an al-Qaida camp and four Taliban military installations. Most observers think it unlikely there have been heavy civilian casualties: officials give no estimates for fear of sounding callous about those there have been. The true picture will only emerge afterwards: in Kosovo there were many fewer than feared.  There is no reason to think the fight to remove the Taliban is bogged down or in any particular trouble. There is an observable steady increase in activity with B-52s bombing the front line (not "carpet bombing" Dresden-style, when vast formations wiped whole cities). Many Taliban soldiers are dead, but a certain reticence stops officials saying that either.  Reports showing the Northern Alliance doing nothing much, waiting just a few miles from Kabul and Mazar within easy sight of the Taliban on the other side look lackadaisical. Why don't they get on with it? For the very good reason that they are in no hurry to get their men killed. What's the rush? Their civil war has been going on for years and time is on their side. Why not just sit and watch bombs do most of the work? In Kosovo, bombing lasted three months; in Kuwait it lasted six months before ground attack.  Time is not on the side of starving Afghans facing winter. Retorting sharply to a Taliban call for more UN help, UNHCR spokesman Peter Kessler said yesterday: "The UNHCR and our partner agencies have had our vehicles stolen, our offices taken over and our staff beaten. It has not been easy ... The breakdown in law and order has made it difficult to distribute aid. What we would like from the Taliban is the return of our offices and assets and a guarantee that our people on the ground won't be hassled by armed men." Bombing is not the only obstacle to aid. Kenzo Oshima, the UN's under- secretary general for humanitarian affairs, told the Today programme: "There have been some calls for a pause ... but I wonder whether that really helps. As a matter of fact, military strikes have not hampered in any significant way the delivery of assistance." The race against time is to remove the Taliban before they let more Afhgans starve.  Time is also not on the side of the news-hungry, who need daily signs of progress. "In for the kill!" promised the Mirror headline yesterday in full here-we-go bloodrush. But the Big Push may not happen. Beyond the occasional glimpse through a keyhole at a tiny part of a plan, everyone is left guessing. Officials warn of a long campaign of mostly invisible forays into Taliban territory, lasting beyond a new broad-based government arriving in power.  Public opinion in the west lacks the Northern Alliance's patience, (maybe because they are not on the frontline). Seeing only distant puffs of smoke, a queasy public is left to imagine the worst - civilian bloodshed and a military stalemate. Air war is always a public relations disaster. To modern societies it looks cowardly, disobeying some notional chivalric rules, as if war were a game. Bombardment works, making victory less dangerous, but it doesn't satisfy the Hollywood version of what war should be.  The sight of western troops going over the top would be more satisfying: hand to hand fighting is "fairer". An action movie needs a moral script ensuring the good guy wins against the odds, not with the odds heavily stacked on his side from the start. It is a kind of decadence to forget that only one thing matters - the right side must win. Few seriously doubt the Taliban will fall, with Bin Laden either es caped or caught and the UN will be installed for years, to guarantee peace and human rights in this anarchic land.  After that, what is "winning" in the longer run? Does President Bush really understand the enormous implications? America has been brutally awoken from a solipsistic dream of its own virtue to find itself hated in ways it never knew. Now it is painfully aware of a vulnerability that will last until America genuinely becomes the force for good it always imagined itself to be.  The first test comes in Doha where the WTO talks open on Friday, when the US delegation arrives in Qatar with gas masks and emergency supplies, as vivid reminders. Their attitude towards opening markets to benefit poor countries will reveal whether the US has really understood. Success in Doha matters desperately for a world economy on the verge of recession: one study reveals that cutting trade barriers by just one third would increase global income by $612bn. The poor world needs doors opened to its agriculture which means the US and the EU cutting back on its colossal and pointless agricultural subsidies. But will they put the urgent needs of developing countries who depend on agricultural exports above their own agriculture which forms only a very small part of their economies? Will they break the patents and give the poor world access to cheap medicines and tech nology? The rich put low tariffs on raw materials they need but high tariffs on imported finished products: the US charges 48% on imported sports footwear to protect its own industry.  The other test is Israel. As Sharon snubs the president, cancelling a visit to Washington and insulting him with talk of Nazi appeasement, the world looks on to see whether the US will insist its wayward client gets back to the peace process and shuts down the settlements snatched on Palestinian land. Then there is the lunacy of the US missile defence system. Will they press on at a price that could buy real security in the form of energy self-sufficiency with wind and solar power? Or will they squander any moral authority in the battle to stop nuclear proliferation? And there is the UN. The US could single-handedly breathe new life and finance into it, agreeing to sign up to provisions it has rejected - such as the international criminal court.  How victory in Afghanistan will look to the outside world depends on how America behaves in victory. Islamic fundamentalists and others who dismiss the UN human rights convention as a "western" construct will have every excuse to continue rejecting democracy, freedom for women and the rule of law if they still see double standards in how the west treats Israel and Palestine or double-dealing in trade with poor countries. Everything is now linked.