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A Perspective on The War in Afghanistan: Four Pictures of an Af/Pak Deal

A Perspective on The War in Afghanistan: Four Pictures of an Af/Pak Deal

A Perspective on The War in Afghanistan: Four Pictures of an Af/Pak Deal

A Perspective on The War in Afghanistan: Four Pictures of an Af/Pak Deal

A Perspective on The War in Afghanistan: Four Pictures of an Af/Pak Deal

The deal President Obama recently signed in Kabul with his Afghan counterpart President Hamid Karzai ostensibly sequesters U.S troops on the ground in Afghanistan for the next twelve years. And then in 2024, so the story goes, the U.S. will leave for good. Of course, the plan includes graduated measures that decrease the U.S footprint in Afghanistan  (soldiers depart starting 2013; power is transferred in 2014 and so on) but the plan sounds (reads?) non-credible: it essentially allows U.S. involvement in Afghanistan to  turn as much on circumstances there and at home. Neither side has costs attached to staying longer or leaving earlier.

But maybe it’s enough that there’s a plan. And maybe it’s good enough that there are pictures that go along with that plan to prove that some kind of agreement happened.  On to Chicago!

 

 

 

Author

Faheem Haider

Faheem Haider is a political analyst, writer and artist. He holds advanced research degrees in political economy, political theory and the political economy of development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and New York University. He also studied political psychology at Columbia University. During long stints away from his beloved Washington Square Park, he studied peace and conflict resolution and French history and European politics at the American University in Washington DC and the University of Paris, respectively.

Faheem has research expertise in democratic theory and the political economy of democracy in South Asia. In whatever time he has to spare, Faheem paints, writes, and edits his own blog on the photographic image and its relationship to the political narrative of fascist, liberal and progressivist art.

That work and associated writing can be found at the following link: http://blackandwhiteandthings.wordpress.com