Hearing Paper: Dr. Farhang Jahanpour: How to end the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, promoting development and human rights: a regional perspective

By Dr Farhang Jahanpour

A decade ago, at the dawn of the new millennium, 189 heads of government signed off on the Millennium Declaration at the United Nations. This agenda included cutting global hunger and poverty in half, preserving our ecosystems and habitats, ensuring universal primary education, protecting human rights and – last but not least – eradicating the scourge of war. Already those dreams seem like ancient fantasies.

Instead of these lofty goals, we have had the terrible terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the subsequent “War on Terror”. In the past year alone, we have had political mayhem, economic failure, the financial meltdown, the near-collapse of the banking sector, and the failure of the Copenhagen Forum. We have seen the rise in pandemic disease, poverty, conflict, terrorism, corruption and sleaze in public life, to name but a few. Above all, we have been witnessing the continuing pain and tragedy of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and lately Yemen, and the dead-end in the so-called “Middle East Peace Process”.

When President Barack Obama’s Administration came to power, there was a wave of optimism throughout the world, but the new administration found itself caught between a rock and a hard place, faced with two ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well the worst recession since the Second World War. He also found himself torn between the liberals who had voted for him, expecting that he would put an end to militarism and unilateral foreign policy and would bring about real change, and the Pentagon, the old guard, the banks and the military-industrial-neocon complex.

However, although he inherited these wars, he has made Afghanistan his war and his presidency will be defined by it. Afghanistan and Pakistan, or as some American officials insensitively refer to them as Afpak, are the central foreign policy objectives for the Obama Administration. The war in Afghanistan also constitutes the largest NATO operation involving many countries (what the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is doing in Afghanistan is something that requires a different paper). Its success or failure will define the decade that we have just entered. What happens in Afghanistan will not only affect the Middle East, South and Central Asia, but perhaps the whole Muslim world.

In the run-up to last August’s presidential election in Afghanistan, President Obama doubled the number of US forces in that country. Also, just three days after being inaugurated, Obama ordered Predator drone strikes inside Pakistan, expanding the illegal U.S. war to that country that poses a much bigger problem than Afghanistan. Since then, there has been massive intensification of drone attacks to Pakistan even compared to the bad old days under President George Bush. There have been about ten US drone strikes in North Waziristan in 2010 so far, killing dozens of often innocent people.[1]

These drone attacks are of course the best recruiters of suicide bombers and militants. According to the Pakistani government, there were 44 drone attacks in 2009 killing over 708 people. Allegedly, only eight of them were terrorists. A drone attack on a madrasa in Bajaur Agency, of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, killed 84 people, 68 of them were children.[2] The father of one of the children killed in that school put a suicide bomb on and went to an army camp and killed 50 soldiers. The insanity and immorality of the drone attacks and long-range guns firing from 20-30 kms away infuriate the people and drive them towards the militants.

At the end of December 2009, a Jordanian doctor, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, wearing an explosive vest killed at least seven American CIA officials, including the head of the mission, and a Jordanian intelligence officer who was related to the Jordanian Royal Family.[3] This incident gives rise to two questions. First, what is the Jordanian intelligence agency doing in Afghanistan, and secondly what is the role of the contractors in the CIA, because two of the seven CIA officials  were former Blackwater employees. The family of the doctor who carried out the suicide attacks said that he was radicalised when he saw the death of over 1,400 people in Gaza, and in a video message he said that he took the measure to take revenge for the killing of Beitullah Mehsud, a militant leader, by drone attacks.[4]

Over the past year, Obama has committed another 64,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, effectively launching a new war. The US regular forces now constitute the second largest number of forces in Afghanistan, only after 121,000 (and growing) mercenaries or the so-called private contractors in Afghanistan alone.[5] Meanwhile, there are still 115,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Later on, in order to force President Obama’s hand, a report was leaked stating that General David Petraeus and General Stanley A. McChrystal would call for an extra 40-80,000 more troops for Afghanistan.

After considering the matter for a few months and organising a number of meetings with his advisors, military personnel and experts, President Obama allegedly said that he was more confused about the whole issue than ever. Finally, on 1^st December, he tried to find a compromise between the demands of his generals and the American public that is growing more and more sceptical about the war. He announced that he would send another 30,000 troops, bringing the number of US forces to over 100,000, but setting a deadline of 18 months for the start of the withdrawal, thus pleasing neither party. However, it is said that all the new forces will not get to Afghanistan till next August, and it gives them just one year to complete the job.

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, President George Bush appeared on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during a televised address on May 1, 2003, with a sign behind him proclaiming “Mission Accomplished”. Those words came to haunt President Bush and in fact became the object of ridicule. President Obama will soon be haunted by those words as well. In fact, already both the Secretary of Defence and the Secretary of State have said that July 2010 does not mark the beginning of the withdrawal, but merely a time for reassessment.[6] In fact, some American and British generals have suggested that to accomplish the task of defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan requires a force of 400,000 to be engaged in the fight for between 20-30 years. Are American and other Western nations prepared for such a commitment?

When the new US and NATO forces are deployed in Afghanistan they will exactly match the number of Soviet forces at their height. The Soviet war in Afghanistan lasted for ten years with some 16,000 Soviet forces killed and tens of thousands wounded. Over two million Afghans were also killed and another five million became refugees in Iran and Pakistan, and the country was devastated. The war bankrupted the Soviet economy and also revealed its military impotence, two factors that brought about the collapse of the former Soviet Union.

Despite the growing number of American and ISAF forces in Afghanistan the situation is growing progressively worse, rather than better. The urgency of the issue was further demonstrated by the audacious and indeed brazen attack by seven militants who targeted the presidential palace, justice ministry, ministry of mines, a presidential administrative building, and a shopping centre – all clustered in the centre of Kabul, on Monday 18 January. The strikes came as some members of President Hamid Karzai’s new, incomplete cabinet were being sworn in after the controversial election last year. The Afghan Parliament has started its recess without approving all the members of the cabinet more than five months after the controversial presidential election on August 20, 2009. Therefore, President Hamid Karzai is going to the London Conference on Afghanistan without even having a full cabinet.

This is the worst attack since February 11, 2009, when a series of strikes against Afghan government targets in Kabul killed 21 and injured 57. In October, militants wearing suicide belts attacked a United Nations guesthouse in Kabul and killed eight people, including five of the organisation’s workers. In December, a suicide car bomber struck the Heetal Hotel, killing eight people and wounding 48. The list goes on and on, and it is getting progressively worse. The aim of the London Conference that is to be held on 28 January is allegedly to stress the need to talk to the Taliban. However, speaking about the motive of the latest attacks in Kabul, a Taliban spokesman said: “We are ready to fight, and we have the strength to fight, and nobody from the Taliban side is ready to make any kind of deal”.[7] The Taliban have indicated that they would take part in talks with Karzai’s government only when all foreign forces have left the country.

Meanwhile, the number of casualties of Western forces and the number of Afghan civilians killed is just going up and up. In the past year there were nearly as many British casualties as during the previous seven years combined. Out of a total of 249 British forces killed in Afghanistan 108 died in 2009. However, despite this deteriorating situation, there are far too many pundits who seem to have ready answers about what should be done about the war in Afghanistan, advocating more of the same and a bigger surge. Some neocons say that America must invade Pakistan or at least the tribal areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nevertheless, few seem to be asking the right questions. One of the most important questions to be asked about the tragedy in Afghanistan is how it all started. Clearly, nobody here would either support or even try to justify the pernicious doctrine of al-Qaeda and Taliban, but at least we should know what we are facing in order to find a way of dealing with it.

The al-Qaeda that was behind the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the Taliban that sheltered them have a great deal to answer. Yet, if we explore their genesis we will see that sadly some of the responsibility lies close to home. The Soviet forces attacked Afghanistan on Christmas day 1979 in order to support the Khalq Communist Party that had come to power in that country. They faced the Mujahedeen or Holy Warriors that fought them for ten long years with sophisticated weapons, including Stinger shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles, provided to them by the West. Yet subsequently, we have learned that there was more to that invasion than was initially realised. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, in a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur openly admitted that the official story that the US gave military aid to the Afghan opposition only after the Soviet invasion in 1979 was false.[8] The truth was, he said, that the US began aiding the Islamic fundamentalist Mojahedin at least six months before the Russians made their move because, in his words, “this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”[9]

Brzesinksi was asked if he regretted that decision: “Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost ten years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.”[10]

After the Soviet invasion, Brzezinski wrote to President Carter: “This will require a review of our policy toward Pakistan, more guarantees to it, more arms aid, and, alas, a decision that our security policy towards Pakistan cannot be dictated by our non-proliferation policy.”[11] Later, Brzezinski offered the explanation: “The question here was whether it was morally acceptable that, in order to keep the Soviets off balance, which was the reason for the operation, it was permissible to use other lives for our geopolitical interests.”[12] Clearly, it was ‘morally acceptable’ to sacrifice millions of Afghans for the sake of the United States’ geopolitical gains.

It seems that some Americans were determined to take revenge for what the communists had done in Vietnam by using the Afghans as pawns. According to Representative Charles Wilson, a Texas Democrat, “There were 58,000 dead in Vietnam and we owe the Russians one…. I have a slight obsession with it, because of Vietnam. I thought the Soviets ought to get a dose of it…. I’ve been of the opinion that this money was better spent to hurt our adversaries than other money in the Defense Department budget.”[13]

Many American officials were not averse to the Taliban either. In fact, US allies in Pakistan created the Taliban with US help in order to pacify Afghanistan so that a pipeline could be laid to bring gas from Turkmenistan to Karachi. Agreements were signed between the Taliban and Unocol Corporation, when it was one of the key players in the CentGas consortium.  When the Taliban took power, State Department spokesperson Glyn Davies said that he saw “nothing objectionable” in the Taliban’s plans to impose strict Islamic law.[14] Senator Hank Brown, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia, welcomed the new regime: “The good part of what has happened is that one of the factions at last seems capable of developing a new government in Afghanistan.”[15] “The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis. There will be Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that,” said another U.S. diplomat in 1997.[16]

The Americans set a trap for the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and it achieved its aim of toppling the Soviet Empire. Sadly, it seems that the United States itself has now fallen into the trap with the same predictable results. In the process, they have subjected the longsuffering Afghan people to a new series of disasters, and there seems to be no end in sight for the Afghans who have been subjected to war and bloodshed for the past 30 years.

Malalai Joya, the youngest Afghan MP who is on the run due to having criticised the warlords, calling them “law brokers not law makers,” said: “We are the war generation. We saw nothing in our lives but disaster, war, violence, and all these catastrophic situations.”[17] In a speech in New York she said: “After 9/11, they occupied my country under the banner of women’s rights and human rights and democracy, but they bring into power this photocopy of the Taliban. That’s why today, the situation in Afghanistan is a disaster.”[18]

Malalai is quick to point out the reality of occupation for average Afghans. She says that poverty remains endemic, corruption is flourishing thanks to the billions of dollars foreign governments and NGOs have poured in, and the recent election was, she says, “a ridiculous drama … just rubbing salt in the injured heart of my people.” As for women, she says: “The situation of woman is a disaster and just as catastrophic as under the domination of the Taliban.” She concludes: “They invaded my country to have access to the gas and oil of the Asian republics. And now the people of my country are crushed between three powerful enemies: the occupation forces bombing and killing innocent civilians, most of them women and children; and the Taliban and these warlords.”[19]

She is right. The civilian death toll in Afghanistan in 2009 has been the highest since the first year after the invasion. According to UN reports 2,412 civilians were killed in 2009, a new record. More than a half of them were killed by Taliban or other radical fundamentalists and the rest by the Coalition forces.

Meanwhile, the war in Afghanistan has also destabilised Pakistan, with the possibility of producing a greater disaster. A new report has come out on Pakistan’s struggle with Taliban and other militants in 2009, mainly in the country’s northwest. The government maintains that it killed about 12,000 militants and wounded a similar number, as well as capturing about 12,000, as well. Only 75 of those captured were ‘al-Qaeda’ (I presume, Arabs). A little over 3,000 civilians died in militant attacks. At one point, 2.3 million people were internally displaced and the entire economy of the tribal area has been destroyed.

Possible solutions to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan

A fundamental rethinking of Western strategy is therefore urgently required. This could include:

1- Define the aim of the campaign in Afghanistan

The aim of the campaign in Afghanistan has changed from time to time and it is not clear what the real mission is. Initially, the goal was to get rid of  al-Qaeda, then to fight against the Taliban, then to protect women, then “counter terrorism” was changed to “counter insurgency”, then there was talk of “nation building”, establishing democracy, helping women, safeguarding Western security.

The destruction of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was achieved quickly, as many of them were either killed or fled to the neighbouring Pakistan. According to U.S. National Security Advisor James Jones, al-Qaeda has fewer than 100 operatives in Afghanistan.[20] So, having a force of more than 100,000 Western soldiers to defeat them would be truly like the proverbial use of an axe to crack a nut. Other reasons given for the war has been the defeat of the Taliban, although recently President Karzai and Western countries have called on “moderate” Taliban to join the government.

Many cynics believe that the goal of the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq is to gain access to oil and gas in Central Asia, deny Chinese and Russian influence in that region, and to control the resources of the Middle East. If this is the real goal behind those occupations it is wrong and it is bound to fail, because the world is moving towards a multi-polar system, and the period of America being the sole superpower in the world is ending. However, if this assumption is wrong, the United States should explain why she is building permanent bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States has already built the largest embassy in a prime location in Baghdad and is trying to repeat the same in Pakistan. These activities and leaving tens of thousands of forces behind in those countries do not provide the assurance that America’s goal in those countries is purely benevolent.

So, the first urgent requirement is to define the goal of the campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

2- Stop drone attacks

The most immediate step that the US government must take is to put an end to drone attacks in Pakistan. Many Afghan and Pakistani politicians have stressed that the drones are one of the biggest sources of anger and the best recruiters of terrorists. Even the top adviser to the US army chief in Afghanistan, David Kilcullen, has observed that the US drone strikes in Pakistan are creating more enemies than eliminating them, hence the need to have them “called off.”[21] The impersonality of the drones and the large number of casualties that result alienate and infuriate most Pakistanis. Pakistani leaders have repeatedly condemned these attacks and have called on the United States to stop them. Their inability to change US behaviour further humiliates and enrages the public and turns them against their own government.

3- Declare a unilateral ceasefire

Nearly nine years of fighting should have been enough to show that there is no military solution to the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Instead of a troop surge, President Obama should have told his generals to prepare a timetable for the orderly withdrawal of American forces from both Afghanistan and Iraq. A brave gesture of reconciliation, telling the Afghans and Pakistanis that US forces will be leaving by a set date in the near future could win back many more moderate elements who have been alienated.

4- Get the regional countries involved in the solution

Nearly all Afghanistan’s neighbours, Iran, India, Russia and China have been opposed to the Taliban from the start. Iran nearly went to war with them when they were first established in Kabul and when they killed about a dozen Iranian diplomats and journalists in Mazar-e Sharif. Both the Russians and the Chinese are nervous about the influence of the Taliban and of radical Islam in Central Asian countries and in Xinjiang province of China where there is already a radical Islamic movement. India is opposed to the Taliban both due to their militancy, as well as seeing the Taliban as a means of “providing strategic depth” for Pakistan. After the growth of the “Pakistani Taliban” and the threat that they pose to Pakistan even that country is prepared to withdraw its support for them. If these countries are invited to play a constructive role during and following the withdrawal of US and ISAF forces, this could provide a comprehensive, regional solution and would also prevent any help to the radicals by any of these countries.[22]

5- Try to resolve the Kashmir problem

The best way to ensure co-operation between India and Pakistan and to drain militancy would be to find a lasting solution for the issue of Kashmir. If the Indo-Pakistani tension and the ever-present threat of war subside, Pakistan can devote her energies to making a better life for its citizens and preventing militancy inside its borders. There have been three wars between India and Pakistan over Kashmir and another war could involve the use of nuclear weapons.

There have been several attempts at finding a peaceful solution to the issue of Kashmir and at times they seemed tantalising close. General Musharraf was open to a deal that would entail the notion of ‘soft borders’ and separate autonomy for the two parts of Kashmir.[23] However, India has been dragging its feet due to security considerations. The resolution of the Kashmir problem would remove a major cause of terrorism and would ensure a lasting peace between India and Pakistan.

6 – Start negotiations with the Taliban and the Pashtuns

As a part of this process, there should be political negotiations with the Taliban and with Pashtun tribes in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the aim of separating them from al-Qaida. While most Pashtuns are warlike and fiercely independent, there is no reason to believe that most of them would support al-Qaida, which is mainly a foreign organisation dominated by Wahhabi Arabs. It should be also borne in mind that the Taliban was not a native product of Afghanistan. Even the hard-line Taliban have indicated that they are willing to negotiate with the government when the occupation is ended. With a serious process of withdrawal in place, it is quite possible to get the more moderate Taliban to join in a unity government in Afghanistan.

Equally, if the Pashtuns were left to themselves they would return to their old ways of independence based on their tribal loyalties. The introduction of Western-style democracy is not something that can be imposed on them by force. Democracy is not a product but a process. It is something that can grow as the result of education and greater integration with the outside world. Initially, a resolution of the situation in Afghanistan would require guaranteeing the autonomy of the tribal areas, under a loose form of federation and a symbolic central government, which has been the pattern in Afghanistan’s history.

7- Provide bread not guns

While putting an end to its military presence, the West should provide substantial financial subsidies to the Afghans in reparation for the enormous damage that has been done to them both during the war against the Soviet invasion, as well as during the subsequent US invasion. Afghanistan is now one of the poorest countries in the world, with a shattered economy and almost non-existent infrastructure, like roads, hospitals, schools and factories. The unemployment rate is estimated to exceed 50 per cent. Every US troop who fights in Afghanistan costs America in excess of one million dollars per year. In view of the poverty in Afghanistan, it is believed that one could build 25,000 schools with that money.

8- Build modern schools instead of religious madrasas.

Both Afghanistan and Pakistan are still mainly rural countries with more than 70 per cent of Afghans and 64 per cent of the Pakistanis living in villages. Less than half of the population can either read or write, while girls’ enrolment is among the lowest in the world, lagging behind Ethiopia and Yemen. One in three school-age Pakistani children does not attend school, and many of those who do, attend madrasas that offer almost no instruction beyond the memorising of the Koran, thus creating a large pool of volunteers for militant Islam. The madrasas only filled the gap in the absence of proper schools. The building of schools with modern curricula would be a much more effective way of putting an end to radical Islamism than any military campaigns.

9- Beware of a massive volcano

Shortly after the Iranian revolution that unexpectedly brought many disparate anti-Shah and anti-American forces together and resulted in an unstoppable revolution against one of the most powerful and most stables governments in the Middle East, Stansfield Turner, the former Director of the CIA, wrote: “What we didn’t predict was a 78-year-old-man, an Ayatollah, who had spent 14 years in exile, uniting these forces and turning all these volcanos into one immense volcano; into a national and real revolution.”[24]

As the wars that are raging in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere are intensifying anti-Western feelings among a large section of the public in these countries, we must beware lest these aroused masses come together and create a volcano beyond anything that we can imagine.

What the world hopes to see under President Obama is a radical shift away from militarism and  peaceful resolutions of conflicts all over the world. There should be a paradigm shift away from a military-dominated outlook to one based on old-fashioned diplomacy, and a policy of winning hearts and minds. As the sole remaining super-power, and one based on democratic ideals, the United States is the only country that can lead the world away from militarism towards freedom, democracy and lasting peace.

By Farhang Jahanpour

Dr Farhang Jahanpour is a former professor and dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the University of Isfahan, a former Fulbright senior research scholar at Harvard, and currently he is an Associate Fellow at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, at Oxford University.

http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/14/us-drone-kills-18-in-north-waziristan-attack/

[2] See Imran Khan’s speech at the debate on Pakistan, London 14 January 2010, http://www.intelligencesquared.com/iq2-video/2010/pakistan-what-next

[3] See: “Suicide Bombing Puts a Rare Face on C.I.A.’s Work” by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times: January 6, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/world/asia/07intel.html?th&emc=th

[4] See: “Jordanian Bomber’s Path Remains a Mystery to His Family” by Stephen Farrell,

New York Times: January 6, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/world/asia/07jordan.html?th&emc=th

[5] See: “Hope Has Left the Building” by Arun Gupta, The Indypendent, January 8, 2010 http://www.indypendent.org/2010/01/07/hope-left/

[6] See: US downplays 2011 Afghanistan troop withdrawal target, The Guardian, 6 December 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/06/us-2011-afghanistan-troop-withdrawal-target

[7] See article in New York Times, on 19/1/10, headlined “Kabul Attack Shows Resilience of Afghan Militants” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/world/asia/19afghan.html?th&emc=th

[8] See: Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinsk from Le Nouvel Observateur, January 15-21, 1998, p. 76 http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/brzezinski.html

[9] See: “Afghanistan, the CIA, bin Laden, and the Taliban” by Phil Gasper, International Socialist Review, November-December 2001, http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_CIA_Taliban.html

[10] See: “Superpowers’ ‘mistakes’ in Afghanistan”, BBC News, 24 December, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4112117.stm

[11] See: “Afghanistan, the CIA, bin Laden, and the Taliban”, by Phil Gasper, International Socialist Review, November-December 2001, http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_CIA_Taliban.html

[12] See: Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, By William Blum, “Afghanistan 1979-1992″ http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/100.html

[13] See: Afghanistan 1979-1992: “Extract from Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, By William Blum”, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/100.html

[14] See: “Cheney at the Air Force Academy: Perpetuating Murderous Illusions”, by Kurt Nimmo Information Clearing House, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9040.htm

[15] Quoted by Andrew Hartman, “The Red Template: US Policy in Soviet-Occupied Afghanistan,” Third World Quarterly 23, no. 3 (2002): 482.

[16] See: Cheney at the Air Force Academy: Perpetuating Murderous Illusions, By Kurt Nimmo http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9040.htm

[17] See: “The voice from the back of the room”, Le Monde Diplomatique, January 2010, http://mondediplo.com/2010/01/19afghanistan

[18] Ibid

[19] Ibid

[20] See: “The AfPak Train Wreck” by Conn Hallinan, Foreign Policy in Focus, December 8, 2009, http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_afpak_train_wreck

[21] See: “U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan ‘backfiring,’ Congress told” by Doyle McMANUS, Los Angeles Times, May 03, 2009, http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/03/opinion/oe-mcmanus3

[22] Afghanistan by Prem Shakar, http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/15584_wt011007.pdf

[23] Tariq Ali, The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power (Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2008),  p 224

[24] BBC News, “Looking back at Iran’s revolution”, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1814141.stm