When we look around the world today, when we see in Afghanistan that 10 million people have registered to vote in their upcoming elections, including 40 percent of those people are women, that's just unbelievable.
Military hardliners called me a 'security threat' for promoting peace in South Asia and for supporting a broad-based government in Afghanistan.
We have much participation of women in Afghanistan politics. Yet 86 percent of the women are illiterate. I and the women who come before you are not typical of women in our country.
I'm also working with Mrs. Bush on some education projects in Afghanistan, so I get to see her a great deal.
Afghanistan has other enormous challenges as well, including a political system that is still very much developing, although there has been some progress in the past several years.
It is now well-known that the Taliban's creation was facilitated by the CIA and the ISI as part of the 1980s anti-Soviet war.
I welcome the signing by the presidential candidates Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and Dr. Ashraf Ghani of an agreement on the formation of a government of national unity in Afghanistan.
But if too many countries, as has been the case, interfere too much in the internal affairs, the political situation of Afghanistan, then of course we can't hope satisfactory results.
When President Ashraf Ghani gave his 2014 inaugural speech at the presidential palace, he choked up thanking his wife for her support and announced that she would take on a public role. That a male leader in Afghanistan would thank his spouse - let alone go on to promote her work and appear with her publicly - made news around the world.
Liberia is not at the center of a massive geopolitical game. Afghanistan is and has always been. The history is dramatic, the politics are dramatic, the landscape is incredibly dramatic.
