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.
AHMED RASHIDThe West would be well advised to change its approach towards failing states. At present, no major power can find the correct ways and means – and the numbers of failing states are increasing.
More Ahmed Rashid Quotes
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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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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 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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They were communists and had the same vision for Afghanistan that Stalin and Lenin had for the Soviet Union: Progress is communism plus electrification. And today? Today Kabul gets its electrical power from Uzbekistan, Herat from Iran and Jalalabad from Pakistan.
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In these extremist groups, which then provided them with safe houses, cars, and not just in the border areas but also in the cities. Rooting out Al Qaeda in Pakistan now is where the main battle is being fought.
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And China is not keen that the U.S. should be so close to its borders over a long period of time. Certainly, if the U.S. is going to be there for a long time, it’s going to exacerbate regional tensions.
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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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The Pashtuns feel discriminated against by the Americans because they supported the Taliban and the war is still going on in their region with continued U.S. bombing.
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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.
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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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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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People like myself were saying the Taliban would be driven out very swiftly from the north of Afghanistan, but given that their main support base was in the Pashtun belt, there would be greater resistance there. That didn’t happen.
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The strategy for peace-building in Afghanistan is economic aid, reconstruction, international security forces. On those lines, the U.S. has been extremely slow. And it has even blocked expanding security forces from Kabul to other cities.
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Some Pakistanis fought for the Taliban. Pakistani extremist groups provided infrastructural support to Al Qaeda. There was a coming and going of Al Qaeda militants and leaders between Afghanistan and Pakistan for several years.
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Despite all the dire predictions made in 2001, the Afghans have given the international community, its aid workers and soldiers a large window of opportunity to repair the damage done by 25 years of war.
AHMED RASHID