Suchergebnisse

A review essay on the following books; Zaeef, Abdul Salam, My Life with the Taliban; Giustozzi, Antonio, Decoding the Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field; and Giustozzi, Antonio, Empires of Mud.

In 2002 Afghanistan began to experience a violent insurgency as the Taliban and other groups conducted a sustained effort to overthrow the Afghan government. Why did an insurgency begin in Afghanistan? Answers to this question have important theoretical and policy implications. Conventional arguments, which focus on the role of grievance or greed, cannot explain the Afghan insurgency. Rather, a critical precondition was structural: the collapse of governance after the overthrow of the Taliban regime. The Afghan government was unable to provide basic services to the population; its security forces were too weak to establish law and order; and there were too few international forces to ªll the gap. In addition, the primary motivation of insurgent leaders was ideological. Leaders of the Taliban, al-Qaida, and other insurgent groups wanted to overthrow the Afghan government and replace it with one grounded in an extremist interpretation of Sunni Islam.

The rising level of violence in Afghanistan has triggered widespread calls to increase NATO's presence. But there is growing evidence that a critical part of the solution lies not in Afghanistan, but across the Khyber Pass in Pakistan. Increasing the number of foreign troops or improving the competence of Afghan forces are no longer sufficient. Success requires a difficult political and diplomatic feat: convincing the government of Pakistan to undermine the insurgent sanctuary on its soil. It is time to fundamentally alter America's and Europe's approach toward Pakistan. Policymakers should focus on a much tougher policy that pressures Pakistan to curb public recruitment campaigns for the Taliban, close training camps and arrest key Taliban leaders in Pakistan. (Survival / SWP)