To talk about Afghanistan may seem a little out of place in space usually given to financial and credit concerns. Afghanistan, after all, does not have sovereign bonds that are traded actively on international credit markets nor is there a wealth of Afghan companies busy issuing debt or equity. Indeed, one of the South Asian country’s major exports is opium.  Why then do we care? 

Afghanistan has a way of creeping into global significance in a number of ways that impact the neighborhood as well as the rest of the world. Least it be forgotten, it was from this mountainous country that al-Qaeda planned and directed the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001.  It was also the home to one of the world’s more odious regimes, the Taliban, whose highpoints were making all the men wear beards, public executions in soccer stadiums, destroying centuries-old Buddhist statues, throwing women out of the education system, and banning kites.  During his presidential campaign, Barrack Obama indicated that Afghanistan was a “just” war, compared to the mistake in Iraq. He is now attempting to deal with the just war, something that has both external and domestic consequences.

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