Long Live Massoud, Lion of Panjshir.

The Massoudist movement is leading the campaign against Karzai and the Yanks. They derive their political and moral legacy from the fallen Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, known in life and death as the Lion of Panjshir because of his skillfulness in keeping Islamist riffraff out of a sensitive valley region 100 kilometres north of Kabul. Massoud was only killed by Al Qaeda agents masquerading as journalists a few days before 9/11.

. . .The political higher-ups of Massoudism include Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister and a presidential candidate in 2009 whose true poll numbers may never be known thanks to widespread voter fraud in that election. Another is Amrullah Saleh, the former head of Afghan intelligence and once a comrade of Massoud. Saleh mistrusts Karzai’s closeness to Pakistan (one reason for his resignation a year ago) and believes that another bloody civil war is inevitable if a Pashtun supremacist party like the Taliban are legitimised. He’s warned in print against the impending Hezbollah-isation of Afghanistan if “reintegration and reconciliation” come off. . .

That's from an essay by Michael Weiss, in New Criterion. I get a kind mention, as does Mike Petrou of Macleans and our dear friend Fahim Dashty back in Kabul.

Michael Weiss is someone to to keep your eye on. I know of no other journalist who has been monitoring the Syrian uprising as hopefully and as closely as he has. If I ever write anything about the Syrian rebels that contradicts something Michael has written, it means I'm wrong. Michael can be found regularly in the Telegraph, keeps the currency of the Henry Jackson Society in circulation and does journeyman work around Just Journalism.