{"id":1459,"date":"2007-04-17T06:06:12","date_gmt":"2007-04-17T11:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/missed-by-that-much\/"},"modified":"2007-04-17T06:06:12","modified_gmt":"2007-04-17T11:06:12","slug":"missed-by-that-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/missed-by-that-much","title":{"rendered":"Missed by that much"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just finished reading Taliban<\/a>, Ahmed Rashid’s study of the Taliban’s rise in Afghanistan, this weekend. The book was published early in 2001 (pre-9\/11, that is), so its perspective about the civil war is untinged by What Would Come. Rashid does paint a very bleak picture about the region and the regime, and offers a ton of insight into how Afghanistan got so messed up.<\/p>\n

The book is also a product of its time, of course. One of the “problems” with Taliban<\/em> is that oil was priced around $13\/barrel in the years leading up to its publication. That fact was a key to his understanding of Russian and Iranian policy, and it’s completely understandable; who would even entertain the notion that oil would someday trade for 5x that price?<\/p>\n

I found myself marveling over how the country, long seen as the prize in The Great Game, achieved its present-day notoriety only when it fell under the radar and became an utterly failed state. Once “we” stopped paying attention to it, Afghanistan became the engine of the new world.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to the end of the book. Usually, I don’t give away endings, but I don’t think I’m doing Rashid any disservice in this case. Here’s the final paragraph:<\/p>\n

But if the war in Afghanistan continues to be ignored we can only expect the worst. Pakistan will face a Taliban-style Islamic revolution which will further destabilize it and the entire region. Iran will remain on the periphery of the world community and its eastern borders will continue to be wracked by instability. The Central Asian states will not be able to deliver their energy and mineral exports by the shortest routes and as their economies crash, they will face an Islamic upsurge and instability. Russia will continue to bristle with hegemonic aims in Central Asia even as its own society and economy crumbles. The stakes are extremely high.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t mean to goof on Rashid by writing this, but isn’t it amazing how much worse it got than his most pessimistic projection?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just finished reading Taliban, Ahmed Rashid’s study of the Taliban’s rise in Afghanistan, this weekend. The book was published early in 2001 (pre-9\/11, that is), so its perspective about the civil war is untinged by What Would Come. Rashid does paint a very bleak picture about the region and the regime, and offers a … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Missed by that much”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,17,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-politics-explicit","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-nx","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4163,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/rewrite","url_meta":{"origin":1459,"position":0},"title":"Rewrite","author":"Gil","date":"July 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This article by Robert Kaplan in the Atlantic discusses the lessons of the Sri Lankan government's victory over the Tamil Tigers, and bizarrely tries to use them to explain why the U.S. shouldn't engage in the same practices against the Taliban in Afghanistan (and Pakistan). The thing is, Sri Lanka's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2093,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/taleb-and-taliban","url_meta":{"origin":1459,"position":1},"title":"Taleb and Taliban","author":"Gil","date":"June 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I enjoyed this profile of Nassim Nicholas Taleb by Bryan Appleyard. I haven't read his books yet, but I'm sympathetic to his notion that the radically unpredictable will trump your bitch-ass plans no matter how farsighted you think you are: Last May, Taleb published The Black Swan: The Impact of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000PDZFCK","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1290,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/in-review","url_meta":{"origin":1459,"position":2},"title":"In review","author":"Gil","date":"January 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I read two articles\/posts this morning that I found quite affecting. First, judiciary-writer Dahlia Lithwick at Slate, who isn't given to alarmism, draws some nefarious conclusions from the Bush administration's legal wranglings in the terror-war: But it has finally become clear that the goal of these foolish efforts isn't really\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":152,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-parkers-and-the-wmd-question","url_meta":{"origin":1459,"position":3},"title":"“The Parkers” and the WMD question","author":"Gil","date":"February 5, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a transcript of a GREAT interview with Mo'Nique.However, to get to it, you'll have to read a conversation with Christopher Hitchens about the invasion of Iraq, faulty intelligence, Mel Gibson's historical anti-semitism, Bloomberg's attempt at Disney-fying NYC, and more. Here's a piece from Hitchens:My allegiances have changed in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":165,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/revisionist-memories","url_meta":{"origin":1459,"position":4},"title":"Revisionist Memories","author":"Gil","date":"March 24, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The 9\/11 commission is in full witch-hunt mode, blaming Clinton for not (illegally) assassinating Bin Laden and blaming Bush for not preemptively invading Afghanistan.The commission members and their staff seem to have forgotten the administration-crippling effects of Clinton's philandering. Thanks to his inability to keep his cock in his pants,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3282,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/pardon-the-interruption","url_meta":{"origin":1459,"position":5},"title":"Pardon the Interruption","author":"Gil","date":"January 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I was happy to see that our new president made the same flub in his oath of office that I did during my marriage vows, speaking before the officiant finished his first line. I'm also happy that our officiant did a better job of keeping his composure than Chief Justice\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}