THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

This summer should provide a clear picture of how well the Afghan forces supporting Karzai of the Afghans will do in the absence of US support.

When the American-led NATO coalition officially transferred security responsibility for all of Afghanistan to government forces in a ceremony on Tuesday, it was in part a formality. Already this year, Afghan forces have been in the lead in fighting the Taliban in more than three-quarters of the country — and they have been killed and wounded at a record pace, accordingly.

But after Tuesday, these are supposed to be the rules everywhere: while American units may sometimes be close by, Afghan forces must operate without American air support, medical evacuation helicopters or partnered combat units. If they get in trouble, NATO will not be riding to the rescue, except in the most dire cases.

This summer is shaping up as a lesson in tough love from American military mentors to demonstrate whether the Afghan forces really can become self-sufficient by the withdrawal deadline for Western forces in 2014.

Just how tough that has been is perhaps nowhere more evident than in Room 648 of the Afghan National Army’s Military Hospital in Kabul. The room is shared by two soldiers wounded in the same battle against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan on May 22 and 23. One of them lost three limbs, the other lost two.

Their company, with the 205th Afghan Army Corps, was based in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province. In May, they were sent to a village near Zangabad, the site of a popular anti-Taliban uprising in March that American and Afghan officials had hailed as turning a corner in an area long dominated by the militants. Just two months later, though, the insurgents were back.

According to the wounded soldiers’ accounts, later confirmed by their company commander, they found the area heavily mined and booby-trapped. When the soldiers began tripping mines, Taliban gunmen attacked, using tunnels through walls between adjoining homes in the village to hit and run.

“No one came to our aid and did anything,” said Lt. Masiullah Hamdard, who lost both legs and his left arm in the fight and was still twisting in pain from his injuries. He said that two American helicopters and a jet were circling above the battle. “We kept begging them to shoot up the place but they didn’t do anything whatever.”

Indeed, from Tuesday on, that is American policy everywhere in Afghanistan. The American military has decreed that no air support be available to Afghans unless an exception is approved by an officer holding a general’s rank — and already, the anecdotal evidence indicates that such exceptions have been rare.

We hope the Afghans can hold out long enough for us to get out.