Ahmed Rashid at PostGlobal

Ahmed Rashid

Lahore, Pakistan

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist based in Lahore, was the Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, for 22 years until the magazine was recently closed down. He presently writes for the Daily Telegraph in London, the International Herald Tribune, the New York Review of Books, BBC Online, The Nation, and academic and foreign affairs journals. He appears regularly on international TV and radio stations such as CNN and BBC World Service. Close.

Ahmed Rashid

Lahore, Pakistan

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist based in Lahore, was the Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, for 22 years until the magazine was recently closed down. more »

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Pressure Pakistan's Leadership

Lahore, Pakistan - The crisis in Afghanistan is a result of the failure of the international community to respond adequately after the Taliban regime was defeated in 2001. The Bush administration began preparations to invade Iraq just weeks after the Afghan war ended and divided the world community in the process.

Since the end of the war in Afghanistan, the Afghans, the United Nations and relief agencies have been crying themselves hoarse that there were too few international peacekeeping troops to maintain law and order and insufficient resources and funding to rebuild the shattered economy and infrastructure.

Having failed the Afghans in 2001, it is again the job of the international to come up with sufficient troops, resources and money that can give the Afghan government and people the confidence that the country will not be allowed to become a failed state. The five year long window of opportunity which the Afghan people have given the international community cannot be squandered any longer.

It is also vital that the U.S. and NATO develop a political strategy with a carrot and stick that will pressurize Pakistan's military regime to cease hosting the Taliban leadership and stop them from using Pakistan as a logistics and recruiting base. Having delivered more resources to the Afghan government, the international community will then have the credibility to tell President Hamid Karzai to get tough with the warlords and drug smugglers and get them out of government. It is still not too late because the Taliban has nothing to offer the Afghan people except more war and violence but the international community has to move fast.

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