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The Wars of Afghanistan
Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts, and the Failures of Great Powers
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By Peter Tomsen
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This book offers a deeply informed perspective on how Afghanistan’s history as a “shatter zone” for foreign invaders and its tribal society have shaped the modern Afghan narrative. It brings to life the appallingly misinformed secret operations by foreign intelligence agencies, including the Soviet NKVD and KGB, the Pakistani ISI, and the CIA.
American policy makers, Tomsen argues, still do not understand Afghanistan; nor do they appreciate how the CIA’s covert operations and the Pentagon’s military strategy have strengthened extremism in the country. At this critical time, he shows how the U.S. and the coalition it leads can assist the region back to peace and stability.
Excerpt
Table of Figures
FIGURE 4.1 SEEDS OF THE MUSAHIBAN ROYAL RIFT
FIGURE 6.1 MAJOR SOVIET INSTITUTIONS MAKING AFGHAN POLICY
FIGURE 10.1 ARAB GROUPS COOPERATING WITH THE ISI ON THE PAKISTANI FRONTIER, 1980–1989
FIGURE 11.1 MAJOR BUREAUCRATIC ACTORS ON AFGHAN POLICY
FIGURE 12.1 THE SEVEN PESHAWAR PARTY LEADERS
FIGURE 14.1 PAKISTANI PRIME MINISTERS DISMISSED, 1990–1999
FIGURE 23.1 AMERICAN PREEMINENCE, AFGHAN DEPENDENCE
Dedicated to my amazing wife, Kim
INTRODUCTION
America and its allies are mired in Afghanistan's endless war. It is still possible to achieve an acceptable outcome, but only if our policies respect Afghan history and culture and we heed the lessons of past foreign interventions.
That is why I wrote this book.
My motive sprang from concerns for our national interests and the desire of Afghans, Americans, and the broad international community to break the cycle of tragic wars in Afghanistan.
I have been personally involved in Afghan affairs for over two decades, including three years as U.S. special envoy to the Afghan resistance (1989–1992). This book reflects my firsthand experiences as well as my interviews of other eyewitnesses. It also draws upon the works of scholars, historians, journalists, and diplomats. It plows new ground in over six hundred newly declassified State Department, Pentagon, and CIA documents. It traces the sagas of the major actors since the 1979 Soviet invasion, many of whom I have known well. Where possible, I have presented documentary evidence and references to back up explanations and conclusions. The opinions and characterizations in this book, however, are my own and do not represent official positions of the United States government.
There has been an explosion of documentaries and commentary on Afghanistan since 9/11. But a pervasive ignorance about this unique country and its history, culture, and tribal society persists in the West. Our misreading of the Afghan environment and Pakistan's intentions in Afghanistan are the main reasons why America and the international coalition are today bogged down in the Afghan quagmire, wondering how this has happened despite the commitment of over 100,000 troops and $330 billion. If the United States does not change its policies, conditions in Afghanistan will look even worse in 2014 when the American-led combat troop drawdown is tentatively scheduled to end and the next constitutionally mandated Afghan presidential election is to take place.
U.S. policy during the 1980–1989 Soviet-Afghan war succeeded largely because it resonated with the mainstream aspirations of more than 20 million Afghans to expel the invader. After the Soviet pullout, the United States gradually shifted its attention away from Afghanistan and the region. Washington did not grasp the dangerous implications of Pakistani and Saudi strategy to transform Afghanistan into an extremist Islamic state. That Islamist vision, developed by Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s and carried on ever since by his military successors, contradicts fundamental U.S. interests. It has stymied efforts to end the wars of Afghanistan and combat global terrorism.
After 9/11 Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf formally joined President George W. Bush's war on terrorism. But on the ground, Pakistan clandestinely continued to provide sanctuary, training, and weapons to the Afghan Taliban and Islamic militants to stage a counterattack into Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the United States, after routing the Taliban, once again downplayed Afghanistan. Washington provided minimal assistance to war-devastated Kabul and shifted attention and resources to Iraq. The result was a Taliban resurgence.
Today bin Laden is gone, but al-Qaeda and its allies still view Afghanistan as the major arena—and the first step—in an epochal, twenty-first-century struggle between their extremist version of Islam and moderate Islam. Their strategy targets not only Afghanistan but also the West and pro-Western governments in the Muslim world. Their suicide bombers attack around the world. Some indigenous Pakistani Muslim extremist groups tied to al-Qaeda have turned on the Pakistani state. Meanwhile, many Afghan leaders have failed to overcome their historical proclivity for infighting and placing personal aspirations above unity and stability in their country. Corruption pervades the government. President Hamid Karzai's regime is weak and unpopular.
We have suffered not only from poor policy but also from poor process and execution. Unwieldy, compartmentalized bureaucracies in Washington have failed successive Republican and Democratic presidents. As the 9/11 Commission noted in 2004, the current national security system was created after World War II to meet the challenges of a "different era" and to confront a "different enemy"—the Soviet Union. In the past decade it has been weighed down by vast numbers of employees and splintered by bureaucratic stovepipes. Giant military and intelligence institutions operate like minigovernments, administering their own budgets and sometimes contradictory policies.
The George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations adopted some of the 9/11 Commission recommendations to improve interagency cooperation toward common goals. But they have not overcome debilitating interagency turf battles. The White House has yet to enforce disciplined implementation of a coherent Afghan policy, even while American men and women are fighting with valor and skill on the battlefield. The Pentagon and the CIA must function as policy-implementers, not policy-makers. They are indispensable to winning wars. They should participate in the deliberation process. But after decisions are made, their military and intelligence assets should concentrate on executing the policy.
The opening chapters of this book describe the historical forces that have forged contemporary Afghanistan, its tribal system, its traditions, and a moderate Islamic faith. They discuss the ethnic and tribal frictions that divide Afghans, and they explain the center-region equilibrium that mid-twentieth-century Afghan monarchs created to maintain stability and promote nation-building. During that half-century, the government in Kabul established a cooperative relationship with autonomous tribal and religious forces in the countryside. The center gradually extended its influence into the provinces and expanded the national army and police force. That structure holds the key to stabilizing the country today.
Part Two covers the wars of Afghanistan during the fourteen-year Afghan communist era, drawing on fresh material from the Soviet archives. The last chapter in this part describes Pakistani dictator Zia ul-Haq's vision to establish strategic depth against India by creating Pakistani hegemony in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal. Since Zia's death in 1988, his successors have collaborated with Pakistani and Arab extremists to insert foreign versions of Islamic extremism into Afghanistan's fundamentally moderate tribal society. The Saudi government supported this futile venture during the 1980s and early 1990s, but then turned against the extremists when al-Qaeda began to threaten the Saudi kingdom in 1998.
Part Three shifts to a first-person narrative account of my three-year immersion in Afghanistan as President George H.W. Bush's special envoy to the Afghan resistance. I draw on declassified U.S. government documents to describe what happened during those pivotal years. There are firsthand accounts of my meetings with Mujahidin politicians and commanders, the former Afghan king Zahir Shah in Rome, Pakistani intelligence officers and other Pakistani officials in Islamabad, Saudi princes in Riyadh and Jeddah, and Soviet officials in Moscow.
Part Four examines the Pakistani Army's persisting strategy to mobilize radical Islamic fury against the Afghan government and the U.S.-led coalition inside Afghanistan. In its pursuit of this goal Pakistan covertly fosters Islamic extremist groups that stage terrorist attacks against America and its friends and allies. The splendid American military-intelligence operation to kill bin Laden on May 1, 2011, in Abbottabad, yanked the veil from the Saudi terrorist's government-protected sanctuary in Pakistan. It exposed Islamabad's duplicitous denials that the world's most wanted terrorist was not in Pakistan. The killing of bin Laden reinforced important themes in this book—the epicenter of world terrorism is in Pakistan, not Afghanistan; the terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan are breeding grounds for terrorists targeting many nations around the world, Muslim and non-Muslim; and Pakistan's full cooperation in the struggle against terrorism is essential to achieving success.
Bin Laden's death delivered a major blow to al-Qaeda's diverse terrorist network. It projected American power, competence, leadership, and determination. It lifted the morale of Americans and many others around the world. But it was not a decisive blow. The al-Qaeda ideology did not die with bin Laden, nor has it changed. Like the Cold War, the struggle against radical Islamist terrorism will be a multi-decade one.
At the end of Part Four, I propose a new direction, a way ahead, to end the wars of Afghanistan. The prescriptions will require great finesse and political will to succeed, especially in convincing Islamabad to change course. Will they need adjustments as developments unfold? Of course. Will they guarantee success in the next decade? No. But if we do not draw the appropriate conclusions from Afghan history and from the tragic consequences of foreign interventions in the Afghan cauldron, then we can guarantee failure.
The essence of this book is how history has shaped the current impasse. My hope is that the reader's journey through the wars of Afghanistan will inform the national debate on the way ahead. I believe that an enlightened path, over time, can yield the results we seek—to bolster our national security; to redeem the sacrifices of Americans, allies, and Afghans; and to lift the horizons of a region deeply scarred by conflict.
It is time to turn the page.
NOTE ABOUT TRANSLITERATION
Wherever possible, when there are different renditions of English, Afghan Dari, Pashto, Urdu, Arabic, Persian, and Russian names, I have used two rules to spell a word: (1) simplicity and (2) English phonetics. In instances where there are conflicts in the traditional spelling of names in the Latin alphabet—for example, between "Muslim" and "Muslem" or "Moslem"—I have chosen the more standard form, "Muslim." Where there are different versions of names of persons, I have attempted to use the spelling the individual uses, for example "Mahmoud" Baryalai rather than "Mahmud" or "Mahmood." The same applies to group names. For place names I have chosen the versions most often used in English—Yemen instead of Yaman, Medina instead of Medinah, Kabul instead of Kabool, and Panshir instead of Panjsheer. For simplification's sake, I have omitted the patronymic middle names commonly used by Russians and Ukrainians. When quoting statements, I have used a uniform transliteration of names, places, and organizations throughout this book.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
EARLY HISTORY
Alexander the Great: The fourth-century B.C. Macedonian conqueror who established an empire stretching from Greece to the Pamirs, introducing Hellenistic culture in the territory of present-day Afghanistan.
General Surena: The Parthian military leader whose 10,000 horse archers in 53 B.C. annihilated a 35,000-strong Roman army under Crassus at the Battle of Carrhae. Crassus was moving east through Mesopotamia, seeking to extend Rome's hegemony to the lands conquered by Alexander the Great two centuries earlier.
Hanifa: The ninth-century founder of the first, most moderate, and most widespread (including in Afghanistan) of the four great orders of Islamic jurisprudence. Afghans believe Hanifa's family originally came from Charikar.
Rumi: Afghans also claim the great thirteenth-century Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi, who was born in Balkh. He spent most of his life in Turkey preaching, writing, and meditating.
IN AFGHANISTAN
Ahmad Shah Durrani: Founder of the Afghan state in 1747. Pashtun. He built an Afghan empire encompassing parts of present-day India, Iran, and Central Asia.
Habibullah Kalakani: Better known as Bacha Seqao, the Tajik "son of the water carrier," he was the first to enter Kabul in 1929 in the wake of Amanullah's hasty departure in his Rolls Royce. Bacha Seqao declared himself the new Afghan ruler but reigned only ten months before being driven from power.
Abdur Rahman Khan: Emir of Afghanistan (1881–1901). Pashtun. Ruthlessly suppressed internal revolts, launched wars of conquest in the Hazarajat and Nuristan, and fused together the modern Afghan state.
Amanullah Khan: Son of Habibullah. Amanullah pushed modernization too fast in the 1920s. He did not possess a large standing army capable of putting down the tribal uprising that erupted against his reforms in 1928. Abdicated his throne in 1929 and fled into foreign exile.
Habibullah Khan: Son of Abdur Rahman Khan. Heeded his father's advice to implement social and economic reforms gradually. His network of European-style secular educational institutions became the foundation for Afghan modernization progress over the next seven decades.
Hashim Khan: Nadir Shah's half-brother and Zahir Shah's uncle. Directly ruled Afghanistan as prime minister from 1933 to 1946. Succeeded by his brother, Shah Mahmud.
Mohammad Daoud Khan: The older Musahiban dynasty brothers passed the prime ministership to Daoud Khan of the second Musahiban generation in 1953, bypassing Daoud's cousin King Zahir Shah. Daoud's advocacy of Pashtun irredentist claims on Pakistani territory backfired. He was forced to step down in 1963.
Mohammad Nadir Shah: Executed Bacha Seqao in December 1929 and created the Pashtun Musahiban dynasty that presided over nearly a half-century of modernization programs in constitutional, economic, and social areas. King Nadir Shah was assassinated in 1933. Succeeded by his oldest son, Zahir Shah.
Queen Soroya: Amanullah's wife, who promoted social, especially gender and educational, reforms in the 1920s.
Mahmud Tarzi: The foreign-educated Afghan intellectual who devised many of Habibullah's and Amanullah's reforms. He, too, was forced to flee abroad as furious rural tribes closed in on Kabul.
Abdul Wali: Zahir Shah's cousin and son-in-law. General Wali commanded the Central Army forces guarding Kabul. He failed to detect Daoud's 1973 coup. Daoud exiled Zahir Shah and Wali, abolished the monarchy, and made himself president of Afghanistan.
Dr. Mohammed Yousuf: A German-educated Afghan politician, Dr. Yousuf, a Tajik, served as prime minister from March 1963 to October 1965 when street demonstrations forced him to resign.
Mohammad Zahir Shah: King Zahir Shah was relegated to ceremonial functions until he took control of the Afghan government in 1963. In the ensuing "decade of democracy" he accelerated democratic reforms before being overthrown by his cousin Daoud Khan in a military coup in 1973. Died in 2007.
Communists
Hafizullah Amin: Pashtun. Member of Taraki's Khalq faction. He deposed President Taraki in September 1979. Was Afghan president for the four months leading up to the 1979 Soviet invasion.
Abdul Rashid Dostum: Powerful Uzbek warlord in northern Afghanistan. Famous for switching sides in accordance with prevailing winds, from the Soviets to the Mujahidin to the Taliban to the current Karzai regime.
Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoi: Khalqi air force officer and interior minister. Pashtun. In 2005 he contested and won a seat in the Afghan parliamentary elections.
Babrak ("Friend of Labor") Karmal: Purportedly Tajik. Leader of the Parcham (Flag) faction of the PDPA. Was president of Afghanistan for six years (1980–1986) after the December 1979 Soviet invasion.
Mohammad Najibullah: Pashtun. Known simply as Najib, he was a leading Parchami and secret police chief until the Kremlin installed him as Afghan president in 1986. Remained president until the Afghan communist regime collapsed in 1992. Executed by the Taliban in 1996.
Assadullah Sarwari: Dubbed "King Kong" for his ruthlessness when Khalqi secret police chief under Taraki. Pashtun. Soviets made him deputy PDPA leader after Moscow's 1979 invasion and later exiled him to Mongolia as ambassador.
Shahnawaz Tanai: Pashtun. Feisty Khalqi commando who rose to be defense minister in 1988. Staged an abortive coup against President Najibullah in 1990 and escaped to Pakistan. Under the tutelage of Pakistan's military intelligence, the ISI, Tanai joined forces with Mujahidin extremist leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and later the Taliban. He is active in contemporary Afghan politics.
Nur Mohammad Taraki: One of the founders of the Afghan communist party known by its acronym, PDPA. Pashtun. Was PDPA party leader and head of the Khalq (Peoples) faction of the party. Became Afghan president and prime minister after the April 1978 communist coup that ended Daoud's rule.
Mohammed Aslam Watanjar: Khalqi tank commander and minister in successive communist governments. Pashtun. Led the tank assaults that overthrew Zahir Shah in 1973 and Daoud in 1978.
Ghulam Farouk Yaqubi: A trusted ally of Najibullah and head of the Afghan secret police after Najibullah became president in 1986. Pashtun.
Mujahidin
Dr. Abdullah Abdullah: Born in Kabul. Received MD degree from Kabul University in ophthalmology in 1993. Joined Ahmed Shah Masood in the Panshir in 1986. Foreign minister of the Afghan government in exile (1998–2001). Foreign minister of Afghanistan (2001–2006). Runner-up presidential candidate in 2009.
Mohammad Fahim: Panshiri Tajik, one of Ahmed Shah Masood's generals. Succeeded Masood in September 2001, days after Masood's assassination. Coordinated with U.S. military to drive the Taliban from northern Afghanistan. Reputed to be very corrupt. Was defense minister (2002–2004). President Karzai's vice president (2009–present).
Sayyid Ahmad Gailani: Moderate. One of the seven Peshawar party leaders chosen by Pakistan to lead the Mujahidin. Titular head (pir) of the Qadiriya Sufi order. The ISI downgraded his once formidable Mujahidin military organization after the Soviet Army withdrew in 1989.
Abdul Haq: Moderate, nationalist, and popular Mujahidin Pashtun commander during the anti-Soviet jihad. Outspoken critic of ISI and CIA favoritism for the Afghan extremists, which precipitated an ISI-CIA cutoff of support. Organized the National Commanders' Shura in 1990. Opposed the introduction of American ground forces into Afghanistan after 9/11. Called for the United States to assist Afghans to chart their own destiny. Executed by the Taliban in October 2001 while attempting to rally anti-Taliban resistance in eastern Afghanistan.
Jalaluddin Haqqani: ISI-supported, Pakistan-based Pashtun warlord. Sunni extremist. Worked closely with Osama bin Laden in the 1980s. Taliban government minister and militia leader in the 1990s. His son, Sirajuddin Haqqani, today leads one of the three anti-Kabul and anti-U.S. coalition fronts operating from sanctuaries inside Pakistan.
Sirajuddin Haqqani: Afghan terrorist based in Pakistan. Son of Afghan warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani. Supported by the ISI. Leads the Haqqani terrorist network centered in North Waziristan, Pakistan. Works closely with al-Qaeda to mount attacks into Afghanistan.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: The warlord of choice of the Pakistani Army and of the Pakistani politico-religious party Jamaat-i Islami. Pashtun. Recruited by the ISI when a student at Kabul University in the early 1970s and has remained linked to the ISI. Was one of the seven Peshawar party leaders chosen by Pakistan. Support base remains mainly in Pakistan. Today, leads one of the ISI-organized anti-Kabul and anti-U.S. coalition fronts from sanctuaries in Pakistan.
Hamid Karzai: Moderate-nationalist Pashtun tribal leader from Kandahar. Political adviser to Sibghatullah Mojaddedi (1980–1992); deputy foreign minister of the Afghan government (1992–1996); in exile in Pakistan until October 2001, when, after American military intervention, he organized a tribal uprising in southern Afghanistan with the assistance of U.S. Special Forces. Afghan interim president and president (2001–present).
Abdul Karim Khalili: Moderate Hazara Shia cleric, succeeded Abdul Ali Mazari as leader of the Hazara Hezb-i Wahdat (Party of Islamic Unity) after the Taliban murdered Mazari in 1996. Has remained President Karzai's second vice president since 2002.
Masood Khalili: Personal friend and adviser to Ahmed Shah Masood. Ambassador to India (2001–2006), Turkey (2006–2010), Spain (2010–present).
Yunus Khalis: Conservative, virulently anti-Shia Pashtun religious cleric and one of the seven Peshawar party leaders. Befriended Osama bin Laden during the Soviet-Afghan war and facilitated his escape from Tora Bora into Pakistan in December 2002.
Ismael Khan: Moderate, powerful Mujahidin Tajik commander in western Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan war. After the Soviets left, his military position declined. Made a comeback in the West after the Najib regime collapsed in 1992. Captured Herat but lost it to the Taliban in 1995. Won Herat again after the 2001 American intervention routed the Taliban, later moved to Kabul to become energy minister in President Karzai's cabinet.
Ahmed Shah Masood: Successful Mujahidin Panshiri Tajik commander in northern Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan war. Contended with Pakistani ISI and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar attacks during and after the Soviet-Afghan war. Captured Kabul when Najib fell in April 1992. Fought the ISI-backed Taliban and al-Qaeda (1995–2001). Killed by al-Qaeda two days before the 9/11 attacks, on September 9, 2011.
Ahmed Zia Masood: Senior adviser to and brother of Ahmed Shah Masood. Was President Hamid Karzai's first vice president (2004–2009), but broke with Karzai and joined the opposition during that period.
Abdul Ali Mazari: Iran -supported Shia Hazara religious cleric, headed the Shia Hezb-i Wahdat (Party of Islamic Unity) from 1989 to 1996. Taliban executed him in 1996.
Sibghatullah Mojaddedi: A moderate, religious cleric and one of the seven Peshawar party leaders. President of the Afghan Interim Government (AIG) created in Pakistan by the ISI in 1989. Was interim Afghan president in Kabul from May to June 1992, after Najib's regime collapsed. Titular head (pir) of the Naqshbandiya Sufi order in Afghanistan. Chairman of the Afghan legislature's upper house after the 2005 parliamentary elections.
Anwar al-Haq Mujahid: Pakistan-based Afghan terrorist. Pashtun. Son of the late Peshawar party leader Yunus Khalis. Leads a small front launching crossborder attacks into Afghanistan. Supported by the ISI. Affiliated with al-Qaeda. Assisted Osama bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora into Pakistan in December 2001. Leads the Taliban Nangarhar Province Shura.
Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi: A moderate Pashtun, religious cleric, and one of the seven Peshawar party leaders. Continued to live in Pakistan after the communist regime fell in 1992. Died there in 2002.
Haji Abdul Qadir: Moderate-nationalist Pashtun Mujahidin commander, Abdul Haq's older brother. Head of the Jalalabad governing shura in the 1980s and up to 1996. Joined Commander Ahmed Shah Masood in the north to fight the Taliban that year. After the Taliban's ouster, became President Karzai's vice president, minister of public works, and governor of Nangarhar. Assassinated in July 1992.
Burhanuddin Rabbani: Badakhshani Tajik cleric, a graduate of Cairo's al-Azhar University, promoter of the Muslim Brotherhood and its causes. One of the seven Peshawar party leaders and part of the ISI-favored extremist wing of the Mujahidin (1980–1992). Unelected president of Afghanistan (July 1992–September 1996). Active in contemporary Afghan politics, holds a seat in parliament, and chairs President Hamid Karzai's High Peace Council to reconciliate with the Taliban.
Abdul Razak: Pashtun rural mullah from Pakistan-Afghan border area. Taliban Interior Minister close to Pakistani military intelligence. Murdered Abdul Haq in October 2001. Thought to be one of the executioners of Afghan communist president, Mohammed Najib, in September 1996.
Abdul Rasoul Sayyaf:
Genre:
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Lee H. Hamilton, former congressman and co-chair of the 9/11 Commission
“The Wars of Afghanistan is a richly detailed account that places current U.S. interests in Afghanistan in the historical, political, and cultural context of this troubled land. Peter Tomsen's compelling analysis of Afghan leaders and tribal politics makes this book invaluable to the policy maker. His wise and carefully considered policy blueprint—basically, America will still help and America is withdrawing—serves American interests and uplifts Afghanistan.”
Chuck Hagel, United States Secretary of Defense
“The authenticity of Tomsen's Afghanistan experiences, knowledge, and analysis is the foundation of a superbly well-written and documented presentation of an astoundingly complicated part of the world. He brings remarkable clarity to a very complex story. Tomsen's book is the most current, informed, and complete Afghanistan publication in the market today … and maybe ever. It is not an exaggeration to say that he has created a masterpiece. It's that good." -
San Francisco Chronicle, A Best Book of 2011
“Peter Tomsen, a former U.S. envoy to "the Afghan resistance" from 1989 to 1992, reminds us in his sweeping history that the CIA has had a miserable record of understanding the politics of the region. "The Wars of Afghanistan" is rich with details about his interactions with key players during this critical period. Following the Soviet withdrawal, the United States continued to oppose compromise with the last Afghan communist ruler, Mohammad Najibullah, and to arm the mujahedeen, including figures now fighting the Americans. Drawing on these lessons, Tomsen persuasively calls on Washington to wrest policymaking back from the Pentagon and spy agencies, and advocates U.N. mediation of an Afghan peace process.”
Publishers Weekly, May 16, 2011
“Ambassador and special envoy to Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992, Tomsen combines scholarship, analysis, and personal experience in an encyclopedic if disturbing history of post-WWII Afghanistan. Readers will appreciate his expert…insights.”
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Steve Coll, author of The Bin Ladens and Ghost Wars
"Peter Tomsen has a depth of understanding and knowledge about the history of Afghanistan that makes him a unique asset in our effort to grapple with the multiple conflicts and intricate politics in what has turned out to be America's longest war.”
Winston Lord, former Assistant Secretary of State
“Accolades like 'magisterial,' 'definitive,' and 'vital' should be reserved for rare books like Peter Tomsen's 'The Wars of Afghanistan.' Few Americans are as knowledgeable about that tormented land's past; none have been more savvy or prescient about its unrolling future. Tomsen's compelling narrative draws upon meticulous scholarship and virgin archives, personal frontline engagement and close ties with major players. This multilayered volume melds sweeping history, cultural painting, political analysis, governmental battles, dramatic action, and provocative prescriptions. 'The Wars of Afghanistan' is bound to have urgent impact and enduring resonance.”
- On Sale
- Dec 10, 2013
- Page Count
- 912 pages
- Publisher
- PublicAffairs
- ISBN-13
- 9781610392624
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