Afghanistan is in a state of crisis. The same applies to the current US-led population-centric counter-insurgency strategy in dealing with this crisis.
Despite the sacrifices made by the Afghan people and the US forces and those of its NATO and non-NATO allies, and despite billions of dollars spent over the last nine years, Afghanistan is still crying out for stability and security. While President Hamid Karzai continues to preside over a corrupt and dysfunctional government, the Obama administration is in a policy disarray over how to deal with the Afghanistan problems.
Based on the available evidence, the situation continues to favour the Taliban and their supporters, most importantly Pakistan, or more specifically its powerful military intelligence agency, the Intra-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI). The US is now locked in what is shaping up as a quagmire, with an Afghan syndrome in the making parallel to the Vietnam War.
Professor Amin Saikal AM is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at ANU.
Professor Saikal is a specialist in the politics, history, political economy and international relations of the Middle East and Central Asia. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University, Cambridge University and the Institute of Development Studies (University of Sussex), as well as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow in International Relations (1983-1988). In April 2006, he was appointed Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to the international community and to education, and as an author and adviser.
He is the author of numerous works on the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia, including The Rise and Fall of the Shah: Iran from Autocracy to Religious Rule (Princeton University Press, 2009), Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival (I.B. Tauris, 2006) and Islam and the West: Conflict or Co-operation? (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). He is also a frequent commentator on radio and television.
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