Persistent Afghan problem

The war in Afghanistan in which the United States is still engaged in some way started in December 2001. It was launched to punish the Taliban government that then ruled from Kabul and had given a sanctuary to Al Qaeda which the Islamic group used to train its followers to attack the United States. They wanted the Americans out of the region in which their country was located. It was this trained group that managed to infiltrate the United States and hijack four planes, two of which hit the iconic high rise trade towers in New York's Manhattan south. The towers crashed and killed more than 3,000 people of several nationalities, most of them Americans. George W Bush who was then the president of the United States vowed to take revenge. In December 2001, he sent in American troops who, aligned with an Afghan group called the "Northern Alliance", marched into Kabul. The Taliban rulers fled, several finding their way into Pakistan, the country's neighbour in the south.

The Americans followed the fleeing Taliban leaders who then took refuge in the villages in the southwest of the country from which they launched hit-and-run attacks on the American forces. This war lasted for two decades; it was the longest war the United States was to fight in its 250 years history. The United States was not the first global power that tried to establish control over Afghanistan. It was preceded by the British when they ruled over India and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, which sent in its troops in 1979 and withdrew ten years later. The British sent their forces into Afghanistan but were beaten back. Then drew what came to be called the Durand Line as the border between Afghanistan and their Indian domain.

Obaidullah Baheer, an adjunct lecturer at the American University in Kabul, Afghanistan contributed an article to the opinion pages of the newspaper, The New York Times, under the caption, "U.S. policy in Afghanistan is a relic of the past." He traced the American involvement in Afghanistan to the earlier attempts by global powers to establish themselves in Afghanistan. "My own family's history has been bound up in the struggles that have shaped Afghanistan – and in their consequences," he wrote. "My grandfather, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, led one of the most powerful mujahideen factions in the war against the Soviet-backed regime in the 1980s. He fought rival forces during the civil war in the 1990s, and he later led an insurgency against the Soviet-backed regime in the 1980s. He fought rival forces during the civil war of the 1990s, and he later led an insurgency against the U.S. backed government before a peace agreement was signed in 2016. My father, Ghairat Baheer, was imprisoned multiple times by the Soviet-backed government and was the top official in my grandfather's party. He would later spend nearly six years in American detention."

Baheer has lived abroad for several years but returned off and on to his country to see if he could help. He is now arguing for the West – in particular the United States – to get involved in reconstructing the country of his origin. He focused on the further damage the Western nations were doing by withholding assistance from the Taliban government that is now governing from Kabul. Funding shortages forced more than 440 health centres to close or reduce facilities. He concluded his essay with the following words: "However painful the U.S. withdrawal remains for Americans, it's time the United States and other countries turned the page and supported the efforts of ordinary Afghans to rebuild their lives." As an example of the effort needed he referred to the work being done by the World Bank.

Poor relations with Pakistan are also hurting the country. Responding to the alleged support by Kabul to the terrorist group Tehreek-Taliban Pakistan, the TTP, Islamabad closed the two border crossings from which Afghanistan's imports and exports flowed. Pakistan also used its Air Force to bomb what it suspected as the operational places the Taliban were using to train its supporters for operating in the neighbouring country.

According to a story filed by Elian Peltier in The New York Times, "Five years after driving the United States out of Afghanistan, the Taliban are inviting it to come back – with diplomats and cash, but no military." She quoted, Amir Khan Muttaqi, Afghan foreign minister, who indicated some steps the United States could take to help Afghanistan from the difficult situation in which it finds itself at this time. The Taliban administration operating from Kabul is seeking to end its isolation. In his conversations with American journalists, Muttaqi, the foreign minister, highlighted tapping Afghanistan's rich mineral as a potential staring point "for a new chapter for the two countries".

In 2025-26, it has signed a defence partnership with Russia and secured dozens of trade agreements with several Central Asian neighbours like Uzbekistan. A study by the Pentagon in the United States using satellite imagery came to the conclusion that Afghanistan has enormous precious minerals that could be mined to serve industrial countries such as the United States and those in Europe. The United States spent nearly $1 billion between 2004 and 2021 to develop Afghanistan's extractive industry but failed to make any tangible progress. The Taliban administration now in power in Kabul holds mining investment deals with companies from China, Iran and Iraq among others.

Some of the old Afghan hands are active in opening Afghanistan to the world outside. Robin Rafel, a former US diplomat with extensive experience and knowledge of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, has become active again. Moving beyond the current crisis, she said, could create access to minerals, strengthen relations with Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbours and counter China and Russia which do trade with Afghanistan and have diplomats in Kabul. "But that requires hands-on engagement through a U.S. presence in Kabul which remains a hard-sell in Washington," said Rafel in a conversation with American journalists.

Half of Afghan's estimated population require humanitarian assistance which dwindled following the US aid cuts in 2025. About four million Afghan refugees have returned from Iran and Pakistan since 2025, in one of the largest episodes of reverse migration in decades. Pakistan which used to be Afghanistan's primary trading partner has closed its borders, sending the Taliban scrambling for alternative avenues of trade with Central Asia, China and India.