The Gradual End of the War in Afghanistan

Over the last few days, US and NATO forces have left a key military base in northern Afghanistan, Bagram, in a “critical week” of the withdrawal process. The departure is a major step in the gradual end of the US-led war in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of fighting. Sometimes dubbed the “forever war,” the conflict has left hundreds of thousands dead while the US has not been successful in preventing the further rise to power of the Taliban.

The war in Afghanistan started in 2001 after the country was identified as the site where the 9/11 attacks on the US had been planned by the militant group al-Qaeda. Though the presence of al-Qaeda in the country was reduced to negligible levels in several months, the US continued its military campaign. Its primary target became the Taliban instead, a well-established organisation aspiring to create an Islamic state in Afghanistan. Since then, the primary goal of the US seems to have been to support a less conservative, non-Islamist government, and prevent the Taliban from rising back to power after it was toppled at the start of the war.

The ongoing withdrawal is interpreted by many in the US and abroad as an admission of defeat. In an interview for the BBC, the US’ longest-serving commander in Afghanistan, General Scott Miller, explained that seeking peace in the best way possible after the withdrawal is now the primary objective, presumably now that the Taliban’s influence in the future of the country now seems unavoidable. When asked whether he had failed, Miller replied that US’ involvement is yet to be evaluated and that “history will judge this and the future will tell the rest of the story.”

Members and representatives of the Taliban asserted that the US’ withdrawal meant the Taliban had won and the US had lost the war. One of the US goals having been to prevent the Taliban from spreading its influence in Afghanistan again, the organisation will now have an easier path to expanding its power within the country. Some intelligence figures in the West have voiced concerns over the withdrawal, claiming that it would be easier for Taliban members as well as other militant groups to plot 9/11-style attacks in an unoccupied Afghanistan. The view “that Afghanistan could revert back into the breeding ground for extremism that it was in the 1990s” is reportedly “shared by numerous Western intelligence agencies.”

During the late 1970s and the 1980s, Afghanistan was a major proxy war front of the Cold War. With the withdrawal of the USSR forces at the end of the war, the country lapsed into a civil war, which only ended in 1996 with the Taliban taking power. In the following years, the Taliban did not comply with the demands of the West to persecute al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups from operating in Afghanistan. This would become a decisive factor in the US’ decision to invade the country following the 9/11 attacks with the aim to both eradicate al-Qaeda and overthrow the Taliban regime seen as its accomplice.

Now, members of the Taliban still refer to themselves as the mujahideen - a term popularised in the 1980s as a summary identifier of insurgent Islamist groups who were secretly funded, armed, and trained by the CIA to fight against the USSR-installed government. Having turned into an enemy of the US since the mid-1990s, they now have the upper foot in their fight for the control of the country. The BBC reports:

“Across much of Afghanistan, the government controls the cities and bigger towns, but the Taliban are encircling them, with a presence in large parts of the countryside.”

“The Taliban don’t see themselves as a mere rebel group, but as a government-in-waiting. They refer to themselves as the ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,’ the name they used when in power from 1996 until being overthrown in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Now, they have a sophisticated ‘shadow’ structure, with officials in charge of overseeing everyday services in the areas they control.”

In April, US President Joe Biden’s announcement that the withdrawal process would be extended from the original deadline of May 1st to September 11th, the anniversary of the 2001 attacks, nevertheless came alongside his reassurances that he would end the “forever war.” While Biden pledged that all US forces will only be removed from the country by September 11th, an earlier “aspirational deadline” of July 4th might be separately sought by the military, of which the recent withdrawal from the Bagram base would be a decisive step. 

The original May withdrawal date had been negotiated by former President Donald Trump in the Doha agreement of February 2020, under which the US would withdraw its troops over a 14-month period provided that the Taliban ceased its attacks on US forces and prevented al-Qaeda and other extremists groups from operating in Taliban-controlled areas. Both the Taliban and the Afghan government were reportedly prepared to start talks to negotiate a separate deal following this agreement.

Even in Doha, the Taliban’s political chief, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, made it clear that the organisation’s political aspirations had not changed and the agreement did not mean an end to the project of an Islamic state in Afghanistan:

“I hope that with the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan the Afghan nation under an Islamic regime will take its relief and embark on a new prosperous life.”

Though all troops are set to leave the country at some point this summer, the US will continue to provide assistance to the Afgan government in its negotiations and fight against the Taliban in its bid for state power. The upcoming strategy might reflect Biden’s long-term aspirations: during his term as Vice-President he reportedly concluded that “nation-building [in Afghanistan] was a waste of time and instead the US should focus on a standoff approach to counter-terrorism using air strikes and Special Forces raids.” 

In April 2021, Biden promised his continued support to Afghan defence and security forces, though this support would not be “militarily.” However, a senior administration official told CNN that “as many as 1,000 US troops could remain in the country after the formal withdrawal to assist in securing the US Embassy in Kabul and the city’s airport.”

As of now, the almost-20-year-long war in Afghanistan has resulted in over 2,300 US troops and 60,000 members of US-allied Afghan security forces losing their lives. In addition, more than 100,000 civilians have fallen victim to the conflict. The cost of this operation is estimated at around $1 trillion.

In 2019, the Afghan Papers, revealing hundreds of inside interviews that had been conducted by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction since 2014, were released by The Washington Post. The information had been compiled for the purposes of evaluating Afghanistan-related policy failures and implications. Uncovered largely through Freedom of Information requests, the Papers amounted to a serious “indictment of how this war was fought.” A consistent feature of the revelations was that, while important officials would publicly present the war in Afghanistan as a hard-won, slow, but steady success, the privately conducted interviews made it clear that such characterisations involved “a lot of spin and lies.” 

When interviewed, “many people involved in the war were very blunt and candid that the strategy - the war strategy - under Obama and Bush and Trump [was] worthless. Such sentiments were echoed by a Bush-and-Obama-era White House war “czar,” who reportedly said: “We had no idea what we were doing,” while a US military commander in Afghanistan revealed that nobody he asked could even define what ‘winning’ meant in Afghanistan. 

The Papers corroborated and put into the public eye what had been reported on the margins for years before - the “people in charge of the war” had been on record saying that the war “was a disaster and they knew it.” One can only hope that, with the withdrawal of US and NATO forces, the war is actually coming to an end and not just that the means by which it has been fought until now are being replaced with others.