Washington these days is always furious when governments it has set up in the Middle East or elsewhere show realistic minds of their own, recognizing the need to actually serve the interests of the populations they are trying to rule.

But Karzai is following in the footsteps of Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who proved his independence on July 7 by publicly calling for the United States to set a hard date to withdraw all its combat forces from his country in the near future.

Karzai then defied Bush by warmly welcoming Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., to Baghdad a few weeks later. With Obama now pulling far ahead of his exhausted and demoralized opponent Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in key battleground states, Maliki's actions appear justified by events.

The Saudi peace initiative on Afghanistan similarly anticipates an Obama victory in the U.S. presidential election next month.

But Bush and McCain should take a deep breath and welcome it too. There are 15,000 U.S. troops currently bogged down in Afghanistan and another 35,000 NATO combat forces there, and they are politically and strategically losing their war against the resurgent Taliban.

The U.S. tactic of using unmanned aerial vehicles – UAVs – to "loiter" over Afghan territory and then deliver devastating air strikes – is proving disastrously counter-productive in terms of winning the real war on the ground.

Instead of providing security with increased numbers of soldiers on the ground guarding communities, the United States has been reduced to a tactic that increases the risks of so-called collateral damage – in other words, killing more civilians in air strikes that are directed by coffee-sipping, inexperienced young technicians operating from an air force base in Nevada halfway round the world.

Obama, when elected, has committed himself to getting more bogged down in the Afghan quagmire: he has pledged to send at least 10,000 more troops into that unfortunate country.

But absent a serious rethink of strategy such as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus forced on Bush in Iraq, those extra 10,000 troops will only be a drop in a bucket in Afghanistan.

And with Pakistan sliding into increasing turmoil, the next U.S. president, be he Obama, or McCain, cannot even count on the crucial air supply routes over Pakistan to Kabul to remain open, guaranteed and secure for them.

The Saudi-sponsored peace talks therefore open the prospect of the United States, increasingly afflicted by economic recession and a Wall Street financial meltdown of its own making, to be able to quietly liquidate its long and futile commitment to nation-building in Afghanistan.

If Bush cannot see the writing on the wall and welcome the Saudi initiative, his successor certainly should.