Abdou Filali-Ansary is now retired from his positions as director and research professor at the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations (AKU-ISMC) in London.
A review of Afghanistan’s Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban by Larry P. Goodson; and Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia,…
Given the unaccountable authority of the supreme leader, the Islamic Republic should be classified as a sultanistic regime. In such regimes, democratic change is more likely to come from nonviolent…