Category: Afghanistan

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Published on June 12, 2019 in Tolo News

Afghanistan has experimented with different forms of government since its emergence as a modern nation-state. From absolute and constitutional monarchies to the first republic and communist/Marxist regimes, never has Afghanistan experienced as much democratic rule as over the past 18 years since the fall of the Taliban. Even though democracy has gradually evolved with most of the Afghan state institutions still developing to deliver on the promise of democracy in a system of checks and balances, the process of institutionalization of democracy continues unhindered with the strong support of the Afghan people and commitment of the country’s leadership, including President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.Continue reading

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Published on October 24, 2014 in The Foreign Policy
This week, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released its annual survey of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan for 2013. As ever, the survey’s findings are hardly surprising. They reflect the periodic fluctuations in the amount of opium poppy cultivated and produced in the country. Last year, cultivation increased to 209,000 hectares and production to 5,500 metric tons — a 49 percent increase over 2012.

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Published on April, 2016 in Diplomatist

India remains an integral part of Afghanistan’s steady progress in institutionalising peace, pluralism, and prosperity. Ties between Afghanistan and India go beyond the traditionally strong relations at the government level. Since time immemorial, people of Afghanistan and India have interacted with each other through trade and commerce, peacefully coexisting on the basis of their shared cultural values and commonalities. This history has become the foundation of deep mutual trust. Public opinion polls in Afghanistan confirm this, as well as the sentiment Afghans share about feeling at home whenever they visit India.

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Published on July 10, 2017 in Eurasianet

The recent emphasis on infrastructure development across Eurasia, underscored by China’s Belt and Road Initiative, is creating opportunities for Afghanistan to foster the kind of economic growth that can blunt the appeal of radicalism.Continue reading

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Published on February, 2016 in Diplomatist

Partnership defines this fast shrinking century. Since the end of the Cold War, the world has increasingly become interdependent both in security and economic development terms. That is why countries no longer speak with the kind of zero-sum undertones, which they used to do in the last decades of the Cold War and the early years of the post-Cold War. At least in rhetoric, ‘win-win partnership’ has replaced the realpolitik jargon of the past century and increasingly guides states towards a new world order whereby every state should be afforded the opportunity to grow and develop alongside the rest.Continue reading

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Published on November 23, 2011 in Eurasianet

Reporting out of Afghanistan is decidedly downbeat these days, intimating that the United States is entangled in an unwinnable war. The focus tends to be on what is not working in the country. This is perhaps understandable given that foreign correspondents often cover violence, death, and destruction in Afghanistan. But they aren’t seeing, for a variety of reasons, what is working.Continue reading

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Published on June 20, 2013 in The Foreign Policy

In complex post-conflict environments such as Afghanistan, security and development needs are intertwined. Without addressing both at the same time, it would be hard to ensure an environment that enables sustainable economic growth. In other words, bullets alone cannot remedy Afghanistan’s current situation. In fact, as former U.S. President Bill Clinton once said, “it’s the economy stupid,” something that is even more relevant in the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan.Continue reading

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Published on March 08, 2011 in Eurasianet

More than nine years after Taliban militants were driven from power in Kabul, women in Afghanistan are making slow but steady progress in their effort to secure basic rights.Continue reading

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Published on October 26, 2010 in Eurasianet

The topic of civilian casualties in military operations in Afghanistan is attracting lots of international attention these days. But a far more serious problem from the Afghan perspective is the matter of avoidable deaths connected to a lack of human security.

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Published on June 06, 2013 in The Foreign Policy

More than 7 million Afghans waited in long lines for hours, in rainy weather, to vote at over 6,200 polling centers across the country. They did so with a hardened determination to secure a future for Afghanistan where peace, pluralism, and prosperity will be institutionalized over time. They defied months of terrorist assaults that killed scores of innocent civilians, including suicide attacks launched on the offices of the Independent Election Commission in Kabul and targeted a number of Afghan police forces who had been preparing to protect the voters. These indiscriminate attacks, which were staged, and continue to be organized, outside of Afghanistan, aim to derail the country’s democratic state building process and to undo the hard-earned socio-economic gains that continue to empower Afghan girls and women.Continue reading