Afghanistan’s uncertainties set to aggravate
December 10, 2014, 12:00 pm
Afghan labourers work at a plastics recycling factory in Herat on December 8, 2014. Poverty and an ongoing insurgency by the ousted Taliban still pose a threat to the stability of the country. AFP
In considering the history of Western involvement in Afghanistan in particular and South-West Asia in general, it must be remembered that although the very latest compulsion for Western military incursion into the region came with 9/11 and the West’s pursuit of the Al-Qaeda, the US first came into South-West Asia in a major way, in contemporary times, in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. The latter was a watershed event that led to the US losing its influence and control in the region. Until the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Western interests in the region were upheld by the Shah of Iran.
