"Former U.N. official Phillip Corwin's Doomed in Afghanistan is a fast paced diary that reads like a thriller, recounting the bloody endgame to the ill-fated Soviet invasionthe book closes with both an examination of U.N. documents relating to the conflict in Afghanistan and a post-Sept. 11 epilogue that brings the story up to the present moment." -Washington Post Book World

"This articulate and engaging book conveys an important and highly topical message in a bold and uncompromising fashion. Corwin emerges as a shrewd observer of the dynamics of diplomacy, one who is honest in his criticism of the UN because of his commitment to the highest humanitarian goals."Jawid Mojaddedi, associate research scholar, Center for

Iranian Studies, Columbia University

To understand more deeply the tragic events of September 11, 2001, it is critical to know Afghanistans recent and turbulent past. Doomed in Afghanistan provides a first-hand account of how failed diplomacy led to an Islamic fundamentalist victory in a war-torn country, and subsequently, to a Taliban takeover and a home for Osama bin Ladens Al Qaeda terrorist network. This insiders account provides an essential window not only to the past, but also to the future of Americas challenging and ever-changing role in the region.

In April 1992, Phillip Corwin was in Afghanistan as part of a United Nations team whose mission was to help ensure the transfer of power from the Soviet-installed communist regime of President Najibullah to an interim authority that would prepare for elections. Some years after the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, Najibullahs regime crumbled, and he was convinced to resign, with the understanding that he would be evacuated to a neutral country (India). Due to a series of miscalculations and machinations, the UNs diplomatic mission failed. Kabul fell to groups of mujahadin before Najibullah could be evacuated and before an interim authority could be installed. The inability of the various mujahadin factions to unite led to their eventual defeat by the Taliban, who four years later routed Najibullah from his safe haven at the UN compound and executed him.

Corwin gives a vivid account of these seminal eventsNajibullahs failed evacuation and the frenzied negotiations that were unable to forestall the anarchy and chaos that followed.

During his career with the UN, Phillip Corwin was an information officer, a speech writer for the secretary-general, and served in peace-keeping operations in Haiti, the Western Sahara, Afghanistan, and the former Yugoslavia. He is the author of Dubious Mandate: A Memoir of the UN in Bosnia, Summer 1995, and is also a widely published poet.