About Lakhdar Brahimi: Lakhdar Brahimi is an Algerian United Nations diplomat, who served as the United Nations and Arab League Special Envoy to Syria until 14 May 2014.
If you are talking about terrorism, you need to sit down and understand what is making these people put dynamite around their waists and blow themselves up.
But you've got to understand what the other guy is about, even if at the end of the process you decide that there is no ground with this man or woman except to fight them.
In the globalized world that is ours, maybe we are moving towards a global village, but that global village brings in a lot of different people, a lot of different ideas, lots of different backgrounds, lots of different aspirations.
When you go from one place to another, you go with experience, you don't go with prescriptions.
A fly cannot go in unless it stops somewhere; therefore weapons, fuel, food, money will not go to Afghanistan unless the neighbors of Afghanistan are working, are cooperating, either being themselves the origin or the transit.
Somebody was asking me the other day - President Bush is now talking about freedom for the Arab world. I say, well, that's great. I was talking about that fifty years ago.
So, the international community are all the countries that are important: the United States definitely everywhere; the European Union because it is very important, and also, they do show a great deal of international responsibility; and then the loca...
Iraq is a country that has been invaded. It's not a failing state that you want to help. It's a country that was functioning good or bad, with a horrible dictator, but you have invaded.
However, it does seem now that the international community, more importantly the powers that have influence, and, even more importantly, Afghanistan's neighbors realize that it is high time that they work together, and not against one another.
The third point is that for some time the UN has been talking about helping Afghanistan in the reconstruction of the country but there has never been any real commitment by the international community to provide resources for that.
People now realize that globalization is not only for the multi-nationals and the circulation of money.
The mandate you go with is intimidating and also is a source of respect that you gain, because you have come with this mandate from the United Nations.
Be modest, be respectful of others, try to understand.
