This weekend, violent protests erupted in the city of Herat, in western Afghanistan, following the dismissal of the provincial governor and long-time regional commander Ismail Khan by Interim President Hamid Karzai. Afghan and American troops attempted unsuccessfully to quell the unrest and, when the dust settled, four Afghans were dead, fifteen American soldiers were injured, several U.N. offices were gutted, and humanitarian aid workers were being evacuated.

This was not a promising development as Afghanistan approaches its first direct election of a head-of-state next month; in fact, the New York Times called the events "a major blow" to Karzai's government. Unrest and loss of life are never welcome, but this set of attacks comes at a particularly sensitive time and may challenge the U.N.'s ability to run elections in three weeks.

Is this violence a serious problem, or does it just represent some "initial bumps" on the road to democracy, as claimed by Zalmay Khalilzad, the American envoy in Kabul?

Since the United States toppled the Taliban and anointed Karzai, critics across the ideological spectrum in Afghanistan and abroad have charged that both Karzai and the U.S. government—his principal international sponsor—have been soft on warlords. These "regional influentials," as the Pentagon euphemistically calls them, have been allowed to fill the power vacuum created by the fall of the Taliban. Many were given high government positions and practically all have grown more powerful since the post-Taliban government was installed.

Far from using concessions from the central government and international community to support a consolidated Afghan state as some had hoped, says the Council on Foreign Relations, "the warlords have largely used their official positions to cement their own authority in the regions they control and have resisted attempts to disarm their personal militias or meld them into the national army."

In short, the power of warlords has been considered one of the greatest threats to the prospects for stable democratic government in Afghanistan. As a result, many observers urged Karzai to stand up to the warlords, both to advance the rule of law and prove to Afghans the viability of the central government.

In the last few months, Karzai seems to have started heeding those calls. His defense minister, the powerful Tajik commander Mohammed Qasim Fahim, had been Karzai's vice-presidential running mate but was dropped from the ticket, enraging influential Tajik leaders and prompting them to back one of Karzai's rivals. Kathy Gannon, an Associated Press reporter who covered the region for some years, called Karzai's move "very courageous."

Now Karzai has removed Khan, the 'Emir of the West,' whose position along the lucrative trade routes to Iran has long made him a serious challenger to central authority. Time will tell whether Karzai's new gambit will work. Success or failure will depend upon whether the international community's support comes in the form of words or action.

 Jeremy Barnicle is a program officer at The Century Foundation.