A Local Perspective in Afghanistan

Rory Stewart on the current state of politics in Afghanistan
Rory Stewart is the author of The Places in Between, a book about his solo walk across Afghanistan. He is also the founder of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation and currently the Director for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.
Harvard Political Review: You’ve walked across a number of South Asian countries, most notably Afghanistan in 2002. Can you speak to how those experiences influence your perspective on Afghanistan today?
Rory Stewart: I think it had a very powerful impact because I stayed in about 500 villages. The main difference in the way that a lot of policy-makers view these countries and the way that I view them is that I have a very rural perspective. I was sitting on peoples’ mud floors and I was hearing villagers talk about their views of government, their views of religion, and their views of society. … There is an illusion that is very hypnotizing that it would somehow be possible to undertake development, state-building, counter-insurgency, eliminate poverty, defeat the Taliban, create a stable, effective, and legitimate government and in doing so also acheive the national security interests of the United States by getting rid of terrorists. So that one would go from the vision of the current dystopia, with women being maltreated, crazy insurgents running around, destabilized regions, towards a utopian vision of this wonderfully functioning stable state where there are no Taliban, no terrorists. … We make an assumption that ought implies can.
HPR: Do you support the idea of a troop surge, and do you think Obama has a choice about whether or not we should surge troops at this point?
RS: Of course Obama always has a choice, but he has boxed himself in. By allowing McChrystal to produce a report asking for 40,000 more troops he has made it politically extremely difficult to refuse. To refuse the advice of a commanding general on the ground when you’re a civilian president with no military experience is almost unprecedented. If he didn’t want to increase troops he should never have let McChrystal produce that report. So he does have a choice, and I believe he should not increase troops, except … I can see why it may be a little late for him politically to refuse the demand.
HPR: How does Pakistan play into this situation?
RS: Pakistan is important in terms of providing some territorial sanctuary for Taliban attacks, in providing financial and logistical support through the Pakistan army, in exacerbating the fears of India. It’s not just that Pakistan has an impact on Afghanistan, but Afghanistan also has an impact on Pakistan. Instability in Afghanistan can contribute to instability in Pakistan. That said, the solutions to Pakistan’s ills broadly speaking lie within Pakistan, or if they’re related to a neighbor, within India.
HPR: With regard to the most recent Afghani elections, were you surprised by the level of corruption we witnessed? Should we have seen that coming?
RS: I think that the election would be corrupt was eminently predictable 15 months ago, that Karzai would win the elction was absolutely predicatble. So I was disappointed that the administration was so unprepared. Interestingly, although you could map out a number of options, the administration seems to have decided to support Karzai. Ideally, one would have some kind of alternative to Karzai. But you’d need to convince me of how the next election would be any cleaner than the last one, how anyone could mount a serious challenge to Karzai.
HPR: You’ve started a foundation in Kabul, the Turqoise Mountain Foundation. Can you talk briefly about what the organization does?
RS: We began four years ago. I began with one employee, I now have 550. We have taken over a section of the old city Kabul. It’s an urban regeneration project and we’ve installed drainage to bring in water supply and sewage treatment. We have a primary school and clinic. We train Afghan men and women in tradition crafts and we export those crafts internationally to bring money back into the old city.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons