I met a lot of the senior Taliban, and I asked them precisely [about Mullah Omar]. The most common answer was he is humble. And that was very true. W….

The idea of a permanent U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, as opposed to an economic presence, is going to create a new wave of hostility toward ….

If Afghan soldiers continue to kill American soldiers as is happening these days, it can hardly be assumed that they will stay in Afghanistan in the ….

Despite all the dire predictions made in 2001, the Afghans have given the international community, its aid workers and soldiers a large window of opp….

[Mullah Omar] gave himself this religious title. So it was something that all those people there who swore an oath of loyalty to him as a religious l….

The fact that there are no longer large units of Al Qaeda running around means you don't need B-52s. You need intelligence and special forces. And, m….

There's a sense of desperation in Afghanistan because of the lack of funding and the fact that the U.S. only has a one-track military strategy. It do….

Our Pakistan elites are spoiled by permanent foreign aid and therefore find it difficult to change course. Pakistan needs someone who stands up and s….

The strategy for peace-building in Afghanistan is economic aid, reconstruction, international security forces. On those lines, the U.S. has been extr….

Some Pakistanis fought for the Taliban. Pakistani extremist groups provided infrastructural support to Al Qaeda. There was a coming and going of Al Q….

I am confident that there are hedge funds, banks or investment companies that could allocate five percent of their portfolios for risky investments. ….

We should remember that the Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. Of course, many of them did support the Taliban. But you cannot equ….

The West would be well advised to change its approach towards failing states. At present, no major power can find the correct ways and means - and th….

The key to breaking the Taliban taboo against women and the cultural brainwashing that the Taliban imposed upon many Afghans is to get women back int….

I think within a year or so, perhaps, if 9/11 had not happened, in Afghanistan would have been a very broad-based general uprising against the Taliba….

It would have been better if the United Nations had sent a team to Mali right away to mediate between the government and the rebels. But where is the….

The problem right now, which I've been pointing out very bluntly to American officials in Washington, is that the U.S. has no economic presence in Af….

The Soviets held to the tradition of colonialism. They raped the country and killed many people. But they also built dams, electrical power plants, s….

Dysfunctional states like Afghanistan need business people who are deeply rooted in their country and invest in it. They can add stability. But all d….

What everyone underestimated was the acute unpopularity of the Taliban, even in the Pashtun areas. People like myself were saying the Taliban would b….

In my view, the Western model of influencing the development of third world countries is doomed to failure. The West does not understand how to deal ….