We should remember that the Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.
AHMED RASHIDThe 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.
More Ahmed Rashid Quotes
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I met a lot of the senior Taliban, and I asked them precisely [about Mullah Omar]. The most common answer was he is humble. And that was very true.
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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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If Afghan soldiers continue to kill American soldiers as is happening these days, it can hardly be assumed that they will stay in Afghanistan in the long term. And what role are they to play?
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The key to breaking the Taliban taboo against women and the cultural brainwashing that the Taliban imposed upon many Afghans is to get women back into the workforce.
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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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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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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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The fact that there are no longer large units of Al Qaeda running around means you don’t need B-52s.
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The Bush administration thought that once there is a democracy, everything else will fall into place. If today you speak to the architects of the 2001 Afghanistan Conference in Bonn, they will tell you that instead of being fixated on elections.
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[Mullah Omar] gave himself this religious title. So it was something that all those people there who swore an oath of loyalty to him as a religious leader could not easily get rid of.
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Our Pakistan elites are spoiled by permanent foreign aid and therefore find it difficult to change course. Pakistan needs someone who stands up and says: Fundamentalism is bad, capitalism is good.
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Pashtun nationalism is reasserting itself. Its political history spans several hundred years.
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What everyone underestimated was the acute unpopularity of the Taliban, even in the Pashtun areas.
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The Soviets held to the tradition of colonialism. They raped the country and killed many people. But they also built dams, electrical power plants, streets, and technical schools.
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Dysfunctional states like Afghanistan need business people who are deeply rooted in their country and invest in it. They can add stability.
AHMED RASHID