Despite the dubious statistics … democracy is a thing of value for which we should be fighting.

I had been walking one afternoon in Scotland and thought: Why don't I just keep going? There was, I said, a magic in leaving a line of footprints stretching across Asia.

Change can only come from local citizens and politicians - it cannot be imposed by well-meaning foreigners - not least because a society like Afghanistan or Iraq is suspicious of outsiders and often resistant to change. I am not going to get drawn into the ethics of intervening in other countries. My concern is the practical question. Can you actually achieve change in this way? My guess is we can stop wars sometimes as in the Balkans and topple regimes - but that the other stuff - such as corruption is not within our power to effect and alter.

Despite the dubious statistics … democracy is a thing of value for which we should be fighting.

This idea that failure is not an option: It makes failure invisible, inconceivable and inevitable.

I do a lot of work with policymakers, but how much effect am I having? It’s like they’re coming in and saying to you, ‘I’m going to drive my car off a cliff. Should I or should I not wear a seatbelt?’ And you say, ‘I don’t think you should drive your car off the cliff.’ And they say, ‘No, no, that bit’s already been decided—the question is whether to wear a seatbelt.’ And you say, ‘Well, you might as well wear a seatbelt.’ And then they say, ‘We’ve consulted with policy expert Rory Stewart and he says . . . .’

In the mountains, travelers were reduced to the speed of men on foot. Here, the ancient English sense of journey, 'a day's travel' (French journee), meant the same as the Old Persian word farsang, 'the distance a man could travel on foot in a day,' and the territory was in effect ungovernable.