Nation-Building on the Cheap

Not long after the Taliban fell and Hamid Karzai became president of Afghanistan, Ali Jalali's phone rang at his Glenwood, Md., home. It was his old friend Karzai, inviting Jalali to return to his homeland and work in the new government. Jalali, who had fled Afghanistan 22 years earlier and taken U.S. citizenship, accepted. He served nearly three years as Karzai's interior minister, stepping down in late 2005 to teach at the National Defense University here. Recently, Jalali spoke with Washington Post staff writer Marc Kaufman about the hard lessons he learned nation-building in Afghanistan.

There has been a sharp escalation of violence [in Afghanistan], especially in the south. Why the upsurge?

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