Afghanistan
A School for Lost Language
In Delhi, two Afghan women are teaching the Dari language to children of fellow refugees, born far from their homeland. Beyond the needs of survival, they insist, refugees deserve beauty, joy and connection to their cultural heritage.
The Ghost Mastermind
The arrest of a supposed “mastermind” behind the Kabul airport bombing has reduced the deadliest attack of the War in Afghanistan to a diplomatic prop. While the Taliban claim to fight the Islamic State group, and U.S. leaders tout symbolic victories, ordinary Afghans sift the rubble of shifting narratives.
In the Afghan Capital, the Economic Desperation Is Palpable
Acts of quiet desperation are a feature of daily life here in Kabul this winter. Although they may not grab the headlines like the suicide bombings of the Islamic State group or the latest proclamations of the Taliban, they too are expressions of a certain kind of politics.
The Long Shadow of Deobandism in South Asia
The new Taliban government in Afghanistan represents the realization of the 155-year-old Deobandi movement’s objective of establishing a regime led by religious scholars. Over this time, and possibly much like the Taliban today, these religious clerics oscillated between jihadism and pragmatic politics.
Ex-Saudi Intelligence Head Weighs In on Afghanistan
The closest Prince Turki al-Faisal comes to expressing regret is when he writes that he and his American counterparts might have been too focused on the immediate aim of winning the war in Afghanistan, rather than the potential long-term consequences of their actions.
What the Global War on Terror Really Accomplished
Contrary to how some understand the U.S. withdrawal in Afghanistan, the lesson extremists are taking from the Taliban’s success is not simply that jihad works, but that diplomacy and engagement are a necessary part of the process, which includes reassuring the West about external threats emerging from their areas.
Afghanistan down, Syria next?
If the evacuation of Afghanistan tested U.S. partnerships in ways that revealed something short of solidarity, building and sustaining an allied strategy for political transition in Syria can provide the corrective.