A Partnership for Peace in the Hindu Kush

30. Further notes with appreciation the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, which promotes transboundary cooperation among eight regional member countries of the Himalaya Hindu Kush region to foster action and change for overcoming mountain peoples' economic, social and physical vulnerability

The West seems to have lost its orientation in the Hindu Kush that graveyard of empires, as it was called after the British disaster in January 1842, when only one man survived an expedition 16,000. What, many people are asking, is NATO really fighting for in Afghanistan?

Withdrawal is one of the riskiest military maneuvers, because it can easily degenerate into panicky retreat and chaos. With the upcoming withdrawal of the US and NATO from Afghanistan, the potential for turmoil in the region between North Africa and the Hindu Kush will increase significantly on its eastern edge.

In 1989, when the Cold War ended, the Red Army had already withdrawn from the country, thereby admitting its defeat. Following the Soviet Union, the US withdrew from the conflict, too, and at that moment, the second Afghan war started a proxy war between regional neighbors over power in the Hindu Kush, disguised as a civil war.

Indeed, the great arc stretching from Cairo to the Hindu Kush threatens to become the locus of global disorder. Little wonder that Iranian envoy Saeed Jalili, after meeting Assad in Damascus recently, announced that Iran will absolutely not allow the axis of resistance, of which it considers Syria to be a main pillar, to be broken in any way.