- Strongly urge that the United Nations, the international community and
regional organizations cooperate with the Interim Authority to combat international
terrorism, cultivation and trafficking of illicit drugs and provide Afghan farmers with
financial, material and technical resources for alternative crop production....
SOURCE:United Nations, “Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-Establishment
of Permanent Government Institutions,” http://www.un.org/News/dh/latest/afghan/afghan-agree.htm.The Karzai Government
DOCUMENT IN CONTEXT
A quarter-century of political upheaval—including Soviet military occupation, civil
war, and Taliban rule—had left Afghanistan a national wreck by the end of 2001. At
least 5 million of the country’s 25 million or so citizens had become refugees, with
more than 1 million others killed. Military operations had largely destroyed its major
cities and ruined large swaths of agricultural areas. Cultivation of opium poppies stood
out as a rare functioning part of the economy. Regional warlords controlled all parts
of the country except Kabul, where a small international peacekeeping force had been
deployed, and the handful of areas where the U.S. military operated. An interim gov-
ernment, headed by Hamid Karzai, took office at the end of 2001, but his writ was
so limited that critics derided him as the mayor of Kabul.
Over the next five years, Afghans and the international community made remark-
able progress in reviving parts of Afghanistan. The United Nations sponsored a series
of negotiations and two successful elections that led to the installation of the coun-
try’s first democratic government. International aid projects rebuilt much of Kabul
and several other cities, helped millions of refugees return to their homes, put mil-
lions of children in school, and helped jump-start economic development, particu-
larly in Kabul. Even so, much of Afghanistan remained in ruins, and in 2006 guer-
rillas associated with the former Taliban regime regained enough strength to pose a
significant security challenge to Karzai’s government and to the NATO peacekeeping
force protecting it. By 2007 Afghanistan once again teetered on the brink of renewed
chaos.
Electing a New Government
Afghanistan’s first post-2001 election emerged from a complex process negotiated by
Afghan notables, with UN assistance, in December 2001. In the first genuine
national election in Afghan history, held on October 9, 2004, Karzai defeated fif-
teen other candidates to win the presidency of the new permanent government. The
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