Seen from a complacent Washington, Afghanistan still may look better than it did before the U.S. intervention. But experts following the country say they worry about a steady unraveling, much like that which preceded the Taliban’s seizure of power in the mid-1990s. The symptoms are similar: Outside the capital, warlords and bandits rule the country, sometimes battling each other and regularly robbing their fellow citizens at highway checkpoints. At the borders, aid shipments and “customs collections” on imported goods are diverted to the warlords, depriving the central government of resources and revenue. The opium trade is booming. In some places, the Taliban’s extreme practices, including the persecution of women, have been reimposed.
All of these phenomena have flourished in a vacuum knowingly created by the Bush administration, which refused to support the deployment of peacekeeping forces outside Kabul.
From the Washington Post
This bodes well for Iraq’s future, doesn’t it…
