For 24 hours there was a nervousness in Washington that turned to quiet glee. Then Vice-President Dick Cheney and the Defence Secretary, Mr Don Rumsfeld, were wheeled out to remind us the job isn't finished. Osama bin Laden is still on the run and there's the global campaign against terrorism to finish. The liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban yoke was but a fortuitous byproduct of the real game.
But the administration could be forgiven a momentary celebration. Apart from the release of the US prisoners/hostages, since the Iranian fiasco a particularly delicate matter for US presidents, the Northern Alliance had not put Kabul to the torch or inspired an instant rebellion, as the Pakistanis had warned. Their pessimism, inspired by political hatred, had infected the administration which begged the alliance not to enter the city.
These are early days, but the genuine sense of liberation that is reported from the capital suggests at least a breathing space that will allow coalition-building to proceed.
Indeed the Pentagon, less preoccupied with the long-term fate of Afghanistan and more the short-term capture of bin Laden, may well have used its special forces on the ground and with the first wave into the city to quietly urge the alliance to ignore President Bush's public utterances.
Mr Rumsfeld certainly made no bones about where his sympathies lay: "The goal is, as soon as humanly possible in the right way, to get the al Qaeda and the Taliban the dickens out of Kabul," he insisted on CBS, even as Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell was urging restraint on NBC.
"[The alliance is] going to attack and take Kabul when they feel like it . . . and when they think that they're capable of defeating the Taliban and getting them out of there," the Defence Secretary said.
Mr Richard Holbrooke, President Clinton's former UN ambassador, wondered aloud on CNN why the US had ever imagined the alliance would do anything else. He suggested that Pakistan's concerns were really about the nature of the coalition that will follow, and they had already received ample guarantees from the US that the alliance will not be able to dominate it.
That reality has been strengthened by the rising of anti-Taliban Pashtun forces, who are taking most of the south and have staked their right to be part of any government.
The administration's quiet satisfaction has also a lot to do both with confounding the mounting chorus of critics of its strategy on the right and left, and the reality that the next phase of the Afghan war will be easier to fight politically, if not militarily.
Hawkish right-wing columnists had argued that the US campaign was wimpish and having no effect. Left-wingers complained about what they saw as unacceptable levels of civilian casualties and the failure to deliver humanitarian aid. The former are exposed as hot air, the latter criticisms become largely a matter of history as the bombing campaign moves away from the cities to the mountain cave retreats of al Qaeda and the work to open a land bridge from Uzbekistan for relief supplies proceeds apace.
The military challenge is still formidable.
The Pentagon has moved rapidly to adjust its strategy to focus on counter-guerrilla tactics, switching the role of its special forces on the ground to the hunt for bin Laden. Air bombing has become even more selective and the US is bringing in more AC130s, the gunships that can provide withering supporting fire for ground troop operations.
It is stepping up intelligence gathering as new swathes of country open to it with huge rewards on offer for information leading to his seizure.
More troops are being brought in, some of them from allies like Britain, France, Germany and New Zealand, to secure airports, vital roads, and to provide security for humanitarian organisations and in the main cities, pending agreement by the UN of the mandate for a longer-term multilateral force.
But is this when the US succumbs to the terrible Afghan trap that Taliban leaders claim they are laying? That the US becomes ensnared as the Russians did to lose 15,000 men in their Vietnam? One Washington think-tank warns of the danger. STRATFOR, a web-based global intelligence company specialising in strategic forecasting, argues that the Taliban retreat was the result of a conscious decision to shift from positional, frontal warfare to guerrilla warfare, an approach better suited to Taliban numbers and resources.
"Contrary to appearances," a STRATFOR report argues, "the Taliban . . . were not routed. They are stripped to their ethnic and ideological core, intact, with most of their arms and equipment." Others argue that although such warnings are salutary reminders that the Takliban remain dangerous, the analysis seriously overestimates their potential. The parallels with the Russian experience are not valid for several reasons, they argue.
Firstly, and most importantly, the mujahedeen could count on huge support from outside the country. From 1979 to 1986, they received $3 billion in outside assistance, mostly from Washington and Riyadh; the war represented the largest US covert operations effort of the Cold War. And Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, later Taliban allies, fought alongside them. Even China sold weapons to the rebels.
Moreover, the mujahedeen were a popular movement inside the country leading a battle against an external invader. Today many of the Taliban's remaining troops are hated foreigners, while the US has worked hard to create the impression that the Afghans are largely to be masters of their fate.
And the US strategy today could not contrast more starkly with the Russians'. Instead of inappropriate tanks and demoralised raw recruits, the US is pitching in with well-trained special-operations forces. Delta Force, Rangers, Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, and Air Force Special Operations Wings consist of highly-trained and extremely motivated men, specially equipped and psychologically prepared for the sort of protracted small-scale search and destroy operations that are likely to be used.
The collapse of the Taliban has also strengthened the US hand internationally, undoubtedly easing pressure from allies to halt its campaign for Ramadan. Despite limited success on missile defence, the US-Russian summit reinforced their co-operation on terrorism and anti-proliferation measures. And the end to the bombing campaign and the emergence of a mass Pashtun opposition to the Taliban should also ease tensions in Muslim countries, particularly Pakistan.
At the Security Council there is unanimous support for the strategy of the UN representative, Mr Lakdhar Brahimi, in seeking to convene early next week a meeting of internal and external anti-Taliban forces, and some optimism, according to Irish sources, that it will happen.
The UN shares the US preoccupation with not getting directly ensnared in either responsibility for day-to-day running of the country or its security. Administrative assistance will be offered to a new Afghan provisional government while a coalition of the willing will be asked to take responsibility for security, probably under Turkish leadership. A special UN mandate will be sought and the US is bracing itself to be asked to pay the bill.
In the Middle East, before the week's dramatic turn of events, the US had already planned a new initiative to bring Israel and Palestine to the negotiating table, with Mr Powell expected to outline the new strategy and a new level of US engagement in a speech on Monday. The Afghan developments are likely to strengthen his hand.
But although there is general agreement that the capture of bin Laden may still take some time, the new situation has prompted some commentators to ask "what now?", potentially reopening deep divisions in the administration. The former British foreign secretary, Lord Owen, has contributed his tuppence to the deeply hawkish Wall Street Journal. He says "go for Iraq" by putting demands on Baghdad to close down internal support for terrorist groups, and then enforcing them militarily force if necessary.
"Now is the time to choose the next sequence of steps to counter international terrorists, destroy their safe havens, and suppress all state support. We cannot just stop with Afghanistan."
The argument is likely to gather steam.
For now, however, the US concentrates on the immediate. At home the successes are still tinged by apprehension. Mullah Omar's threats of cataclysmic times to come touch raw nerves. Another air crash makes travellers yet more jittery. The source of the anthrax attacks remains a mystery.
Measures against terrorism, like military tribunals, which once would have provoked uproar, get a sad nod from most politicians.
At Ground Zero the smoke continues to rise. We are still very raw.
psmyth@irish-times.ie