Expert Advice On Afghanistan

Pazira, 33, has just returned from a month-long visit to her native land. Unlike the journalists "embedded" with foreign troops, she travelled widely and talked to the people. She says the Hamid Karzai government "has lost its legitimacy," given its corruption, incompetence and alliances with the regional warlords. Afghans, caught between the Taliban and NATO troops, are "frustrated, anxious and cynical," especially in Kandahar, the city and the province of the same name. In Kabul, the foreign troops are seen as forces of good, because they have been. In the south, they are viewed as incompetent occupiers making things worse. "I am torn. The Canadian in me says, `What are we doing there?' The Afghan in me says, `What if the foreigners all pack up and leave? Will the country go back to pre-9/11?'" What about Jack Layton's idea of talking to the Taliban? "That's the only sensible thing I've heard lately. Realistically, diplomacy is the right way. The Taliban are not a homogeneous group, anyway." Brahimi, 72, the world-renowned United Nations envoy, is a former foreign minister of Algeria, who in 1990 helped the Arab League end the Christian-Muslim civil war in Lebanon. Post-Taliban, he organized the Bonn conference (November 2001), then the loya jirga, the traditional gathering of tribes (June 2002), and stayed on until December 2004 trying to turn the failed state into a functioning one. Since then, he has been a UN envoy to Iraq (2004) and Darfur (2006). I reached him in his Paris apartment. "We have expected miracles in Afghanistan but miracles don't happen very often on Earth. A country that has systematically been destroyed for 25 years is not going to become paradise in 25 or 35 months. "The Taliban had never been defeated. They had been pushed out of Kabul. They scattered all over and were demoralized but now some of them have regrouped and are reminding the world that they exist." The Taliban are back because of the mistakes made by the United States and the allies. "One of my own biggest mistakes was not to speak to the Taliban in 2002 and 2003. "It was not possible to get them in the tent at the Bonn conference because of 9/11 and they themselves were not eager. But immediately after that, we should've spoken to those who were willing to speak to us. "That I consider to be my mistake — a very, very big mistake." Should we speak to them now? "I'm too far to lecture anybody now." What other mistakes? "The international force should've gone out of Kabul when people outside Kabul were begging to have them. "All we were asking for is 3,000 to 5,000 more troops. But we never got them. If we had, we'd have done much better ... "Then the Afghan administration did not project itself with confidence and care for people outside of Kabul and the main cities. They should have." What else went wrong? http://tinyurl.com/kh6k8

Note: http://tinyurl.com/kh6k8