From Real Estate to Nation-State: Who Will Lead Afghanistan?

Khans, Kings, and conquerers--these are te leaders Afghans have mostly known. The legacies of Alexander the Macedonian, Genghis Khan, the Soviet Army, the Mujahadin, and finally the Taliban and Osama bin Laden share one feature: leadership based on power and divroced from authority--or with only the Qur'an as the authorizing symbol of governance. Invariably, the otucomes have been cumulative human rights abuses and what I call disvelopment, that is, the unraveling of the little development that existed. A common denominator in the repetitive failures of governance, human rights, and economic development in Afthanistan has been bad leadership.