Expert: Catalyst of Afghan Insurgency Is Pakistan

By: Michelle Levi
Topics: Washington Unplugged

National Security expert Imran Kahn, who heads the Transnational Crisis Project which creates policy suggestions for global leaders on national security issues, said on "Washington Unplugged" Thursday that the insurgency in Afghanistan never needed to happen and that the root of the problems with the country lie with its neighbor Pakistan.

"Afghanistan is suffering an insurgency that never needed to happen. The oxygen of that insurgency is being provided at the moment from Pakistan, from militant bases... Al Qaeda and Taliban bases in Pakistan which then allow people to move across into Afghanistan to frustrate America and her allies' interest to promote stability," Kahn said.

He later explained that "the Taliban have not just produced a terrorist force but an alternative system of governance [in Afghanistan]... courts, markets, justice. That is something that we have to prove and show there is a viable alternative to."

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He told moderator Sharyl Attkisson that there are strong familial and cultural ties between the tribes on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, which allows the cross country movement.

The solution to the problems in Afghanistan, Kahn said, "is found in Pakistan."

"Pakistan is unlike Afghanistan or Iraq before it," he added.

He noted that Pakistan has a population of around 170 million people unlike its neighbors Afghanistan and Iraq where there are between 20 million and 30 million.

Pakistan has "an army larger than that of the United States, an arsenal of nuclear weapons and the home of the most noxious, virulent, perverted form of...Islam," he said.

Kahn heads the Transnational Crisis Project which creates policy recommendations for global leaders on national security issues.

Watch the full interview on the U.S.'s challenge in Afghanistan and Pakistan above, along with an an interview with former Georgia Democratic Sen. Max Cleland on his new book and how the experience of losing his Senate seat in 2002 reignited PTSD for the Vietnam veteran.

"Washington Unplugged" appears live on CBSNews.com each weekday at 12:30 p.m. ET. Click here to check out previous episodes.