We Have Failed Afghanistan Again and Again
The 2013 death of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, confirmed this week, should have marked the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. But the fates of the two main leaders identified as responsible for the 9/11 attacks—Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar—are only milestones. Thanks to the destructive nature of the U.S. war, many newer and more formidable enemies have emerged.
America’s first post-9/11 war, launched in Afghanistan in October 2001, is a grand symbol of our foreign policy failure. Fourteen years ago, Afghans were caught between two brutal and fundamentalist factions: the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. Today they are caught between four: the Taliban, government warlords who morphed from the Northern Alliance, U.S. forces and Islamic State.
But just a few months ago, Afghanistan’s first transition of power within an ostensibly democratic system took place, offering the promise of a better future under the U.S.-educated President Ashraf Ghani. The U.S. was to withdraw its forces and NATO nations had already begun doing so. Government-sponsored peace talks with the Taliban were meant to herald a stable future for the war-weary nation. But that future never came and what appeared as progress was only a facade.
Migrants
from Afghanistan look through a window July 23 after boarding a train
to Serbia with their parents at the railway station in the southern
Macedonian town of Gevgelija. (Photo: Boris Grdanoski / AP)
from Afghanistan look through a window July 23 after boarding a train
to Serbia with their parents at the railway station in the southern
Macedonian town of Gevgelija. (Photo: Boris Grdanoski / AP)
