What was the West's biggest failure in Afghanistan? Rory Stewart, who once walked across Afghanistan in winter and now walks the corridors of Whitehall, makes the case that the intervention was doomed from the outset, that "the West always lacked the knowledge, power, or legitimacy to fundamentally transform Afghanistan." Seth G. Jones, author of In the Graveyard of Empires, argues that history should have provided a lesson: "The U.S. failure to stop Pakistan is particularly egregious because the United States was involved in an almost identical program 30 years ago -- with the ISI's help -- against the Soviets in Afghanistan." Here's what some of the foremost experts on the conflict -- from former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to American Enterprise Institute scholar Frederick W. Kagan -- identified as the biggest mistakes of the long war.
More...
Rory Stewart: Trying to do the impossible
Pervez Musharraf: Marginalizing the Pashtuns
Seth G. Jones: Allowing a sanctuary in Pakistan
Amrullah Saleh: Believing Pakistan could change
Sherard Cowper-Coles: Never developing a political strategy
Sarah Chayes: Turning Afghanistan over to criminals
Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn: Failing to understand Afghanistan
Frederick W. Kagan: Leaving in 2014
TONY KARUMBA/AFP/Getty Images
SUBJECTS:
