The problem right now, which I’ve been pointing out very bluntly to American officials in Washington, is that the U.S. has no economic presence in Afghanistan.
AHMED RASHIDThe Afghans can’t point and say, “Oh, the Americans built that road. They built that telecommunications facility.
More Ahmed Rashid Quotes
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The Taliban had become deeply unpopular and were actually discarded by the Pashtun population almost as quickly as they were in the north. I don’t see the Taliban coming back in any way.
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Now the United States has to ensure that Afghanistan does not immediately collapse after being left to itself in 2014.
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You need intelligence and special forces. And, most importantly, you need to resurrect Afghanistan from what is literally the graveyard of countries and transform it into a normal country, which the Afghans want.
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There’s a sense of desperation in Afghanistan because of the lack of funding and the fact that the U.S. only has a one-track military strategy. It doesn’t have an economic and political game plan.
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The Americans make their usual recommendations. They want to train the army for the fight with the rebels. US special forces are already in Mali.
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We never had reports of Mullah Omar living luxuriously or making money in large quantities or anything like that.
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There was a coming and going of Al Qaeda militants and leaders between Afghanistan and Pakistan for several years.
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We should have built a State in Afghanistan with an army and a police force first.
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The Pashtuns are angry at the Americans because, one, they’re still being bombed, and two, they perceive that the Americans are backing the Tajik faction, which controls the army and security forces in Kabul.
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vThis region harbors enormous potential. Pakistan could become the hub for the energy that is transported from Central Asia to South Asia. That could change the whole region.
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It would have been better if the United Nations had sent a team to Mali right away to mediate between the government and the rebels. But where is the political initiative?
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The biggest mistake Barack Obama could have made is to change quite a few things in his Afghanistan policy. He increased the number of troops and at the same time set the US withdrawal date to 2014.
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In my view, the Western model of influencing the development of third world countries is doomed to failure.
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George W. Bush and Tony Blair made the promise that they would not tolerate failed states because they could become a haven for terrorists. And today? The number increases.
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I think within a year or so, perhaps, if 9/11 had not happened, in Afghanistan would have been a very broad-based general uprising against the Taliban.
AHMED RASHID