Afghanistan stands out as the most prominent country in South Asia, surrounded by significant countries of the region and nestled at the crossroads of Central Asia. Afghanistan is a tapestry woven with threads of rich culture, complex geography, and unyielding spirit. The country is home to various ethnicities, including Pashtuns in the majority, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks, known for their courage and hospitality. The country’s cultural mosaic reflects its deep historical ties and relationship with Central Asia. The complex web of Afghanistan’s conflict, marked by perpetual foreign interventions and rising extremism, has shaped today’s modern Afghanistan. Afghanistan, once celebrated as a beautiful country covered with mountains, has been engaged in consistent insurgencies such as those led by the Taliban and ISIS-K.
The foreign invasions, especially the Russia-led invasion and the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, paved the way for the resurgence of terror and enduring chaos. These invasions have rendered Afghanistan increasingly dangerous and created a profound sense of vulnerability among its people. As a result, Afghanistan today resists and closely observes every foreign activity, including development initiatives and investments. However, the global champion of world peace, the US, aimed to dismantle complex terror networks in Afghanistan, which resulted in strategic miscalculations and unintended consequences. The US’s aim, ultimately, became an unfortunate and misleading spiral of prolonged conflict that the region has been enduring for decades.
Today’s Afghanistan is a product of the long history of foreign interventions and wars, including the three Anglo-Afghan wars: the first Anglo-Afghan War from 1838 to 1842, the second Anglo-Afghan War from 1878 to 1880, and the third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919. However, these complex conflicts resulted in the defeat of Britain and the formation of Afghanistan as a sovereign state through the “Treaty of Rawalpindi.”. Likewise, the Soviet-Afghan war also played a significant role in shaping the country’s geopolitics for the next four to five decades. The “Saur Revolution” of 1978 overthrew President Daoud Khan’s government, establishing communist control over Afghanistan, prompting the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan in 1979 to support the embattled regime.
The United States and Pakistan supported Afghan extremists under the banner of Jihad against non-believers during the Soviet-Afghan War. Pakistan, in particular, is allegedly believed to provide both military and financial support to the Afghan Taliban, largely contributing to the chaotic environment in the region of South Asia. In an effort to address the conflict, the Geneva Accord was signed in 1988 among the states, including the United States, Russia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and refrain from interfering in internal matters. This accord paved the way for the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The 1980s: Jihad Period
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to maintain Soviet influence in the region amid the Cold War rivalry. However, Afghanistan, backed by the US, and Pakistan fiercely countered growing Soviet control, with the US extensively providing both military and financial support to Afghan Mujahideen fighters. This protracted conflict drained Soviet resources and morale, contributing to the eventual collapse of Soviet supremacy. As the US was successful in achieving its objectives of the Cold War and undermining Soviet influence, it disintegrated the USSR, making the world unipolar from the bipolar, with the US as the world’s most powerful state.
The 1990s: Talibanization Period
The absence of major war players in Afghanistan created a power vacuum, enabling various groups to compete for dominance and control of the government. This power vacuum led to civil war following the fall of the Soviet-backed government in 1992. Similarly, with the disintegration of the USSR, the once-unified faction of Mujahideen fought with each other, vying for power and dominance in a fractured political landscape. Factions include Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami and Abdul Rashid Dostum’s Junbish-e-Milli, which struggled for supremacy and plunged Afghanistan into deeper chaos, setting the stage for the eventual rise of the Taliban in the mid-1990s.
Mid-1990s: The Rise of the Taliban
A new faction, known as the “Taliban,” emerged in the mid-1990s from an area of Kandahar to stabilize the region and impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law. This faction was associated with the Salafi sect of the Sunni school of thought in Islam, also referred to as “Wahhabi hardliners.”. This sub-sect was largely composed of former Mujahideen fighters and students from madrassas in Pakistan; the Taliban rapidly garnered substantial support for their promise to restore order. However, the Taliban’s ideological foundations are more accurately rooted in the Deobandi school of thought, a traditional and conservative Sunni movement originating from South Asia. By 1996, they seized control of Kabul, founding an Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and imposing harsh social restrictions, particularly on women and minorities.
The conflict turned more aggressive when Osama Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan after losing his Saudi citizenship and allied with the Taliban government. However, Bin Laden’s inclusion began to pose Jihadist threats in the form of bombings and hijackings. The reason behind Bin Laden’s radical behaviors was Islamic ideology, particularly concerning the cause of Palestine. Hence, the occupation of the West Bank and suppression of Palestinian Muslims fueled Bin Laden’s hostility towards the West, leading to the attacks on the US embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. In retaliation, the US attacked Al-Shams and Al-Badr camps with a cruise missile, “Tomahawk, launched from an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea.
However, the world witnessed one of the most significant events in US history, the 9/11 attacks, which reshaped the geopolitical landscape, resulting in the US-led invasion of Afghanistan on December 6, 2006. The Tora Bora mountains, located near Afghanistan and known for harboring complex Taliban networks, were targeted in an unsuccessful attempt to kill Bin Laden. The US maintained maximum control over Afghanistan for more than two decades and eventually withdrew from Afghanistan after claiming its objectives were achieved. Although the US initiated this strategic game to dismantle terror networks, it inadvertently contributed to an increasingly chaotic South Asian region and the establishment of a terrorism industry. Allegedly, one of the US’s underlying objectives was to undermine China’s growing influence and deal a stronger blow to its “China-Pakistan Economic Corridor” (CPEC) initiative. The US succeeded in establishing a persistent disturbing factor, the Taliban, for China. It was not Afghanistan that defeated the US and forced NATO troops out of Afghanistan in 2022; rather, it was the goddess “US” itself that strategically used Afghanistan for its own geostrategic, eco-strategic, and military doctrine, aimed at powerfully controlling the reins of power and striking China where it would hurt the most.
