Rory Stewart
Professor, Harvard University
Rory Stewart is Ryan Family Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The following is excerpted from September 16, 2009, testimony before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on “The Future of Afghanistan.” The administration’s new policy on Afghanistan has a very narrow focus — counterterrorism — and a very broad definition of how to achieve it: no less than the fixing of the Afghan state and defeating the Taliban insurgency. President Obama has presented this in a formal argument. The final goal in…