International Herald Tribune has published my op-ed on Afghanistan.

"Seeing what we want to see" appeared Tuesday, January 22 online and Wesnesday, January 23, 2008 in IHT's print edition. IHT editors graced my piece with a rather expressive photo by Associated Press photog Fraidoon Pooyaa. In the photo two or three Afghan women - completely covered - gaze into the display window of a shop aptly called "Paris Fashion." It's somewhere in Herat (western Afghanistan) and features Western-style women's clothes.

Afghanistan is in the forefront of world attention again after several decades of relative obscurity as a forgotten backwater in Central Asia. It should be understood, however, that this period of obscurity that the country has lived through, roughly from WW II till the 1979 Soviet invasion, was merely an exception.

Traditionally, Afghanistan has been a land of conquest, violence and international intrigue characterized by strong resistance to all foreign occupation. One event after another since 1979 has led to the latest change in our perception of Afghanistan, as each of them triggered far-reaching consequences. First was the Soviet invasion, followed by civil war and the Taliban domination, and, finally, occupation by NATO-led allies after the events of 11 September 2001. All this has contributed to bringing Afghanistan to the present state of a reluctant protagonist in world events.

Personally, I have had the opportunity to witness some aspects of this evolution. Though still a child, in Kabul during World War II, I was able to appreciate some of the interaction between Afghanistan and the Axis powers, with the strong additional interference of the Empire of Japan on the one hand, and Great Britain and the Soviet Union on the other.

A quarter of a century later I was in Afghanistan again as a young diplomat. The place was a haven of tranquillity. The struggle for dominance among neighbouring powers – a remnant of the “Great Game” – hid an ominous build-up that, a few short years later, would cause the Soviet invasion, with all its grim consequences.

Click here to read the full Herald Tribune article.