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Instability In Afghanistan Ability Of

Juan Cole 09/06/2002

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Instability in Afghanistan

The ability of terrorist forces (whether al-Qaida or Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) to set off a huge car bomb explosion in Kabul, killing at least 30 and injuring 50, on the same day that President Hamid Karzai narrowly escaped being assassinated in Kandahar, demonstrates how much remains to be done there.

U.S. preoccupation with Iraq is creating space for the terrorists to destabilize Afghanistan. You don’t begin a new job until you finish the old one.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar continues to be an embarrassing example of blowback. It was the US that funded him with hundreds of millions of dollars, in the fight against the Soviets. The US victory in Afghanistan in 1988-89 looks increasingly pyrrhic.

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About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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