Lecturer
Obaidullah Baheer lectures on Peace and Conflict Resolution in the postgraduate program at Kardan University in Kabul.
Creating a Grim Afghan Future: Op-Ed
Turkey announced on April 21st that it will be delaying the Istanbul summit, a development many people expected anyway. Still, the Afghan people are anxious and hold their breath. They do so because of the difficulty of predicting the future of the country. Although future predictions are never an exact science, they become a necessity during desperate times. Most Afghans do so to prepare contingency plans.
Some Afghans are trying to find their place in the coming political order and to gain favor with those who will be in power, others prepare for a civil war, still others prepare to flee. Any decent attempt at predicting the future of Afghanistan requires a clear understanding of its current trajectory because the future is made of the same stuff as the present.