Afghanistan a broken nation swarming again with terrorists

This week marks the third year since America’s retreat from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s return to power.

The United States had intervened in Afghanistan in response to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks by al-Qaeda. The aim was to combat international terrorism and chart a new global order to make the world safer and more secure.

Yet, as I argue in my new book, “How to Lose a War: The Story of America’s Intervention in Afghanistan“, the world today is arguably more conflict-ridden and polarised than during the Cold War. It potentially stands on the edge of yet another world war.

America’s goals – and failures

Backed by its NATO and non-NATO allies, as well as extensive global sympathy, the key US objectives in Afghanistan were:

• eliminate al-Qaeda
• dismantle the Taliban’s ultra-extremist regime as the protector of al-Qaeda
• help change Afghanistan so it would never again become a nest of international terrorism.

Success in Afghanistan was intertwined with two other broader US foreign policy goals under the presidency of Republican George W Bush – the global war on terrorism and promoting of democracy. Both of these were means to bring change to the Middle East – and indeed the wider world – in accordance with the interests of the US as the sole post-Cold War superpower.

Ultimately, the US could not achieve any of these objectives.

At first, it prevailed militarily in toppling the Taliban government and dispersing al-Qaeda, with assistance from the anti-Taliban Afghan forces. But the respective leaders of both groups, Mullah Mohammad Omar and Osama bin Laden, and their main operatives escaped to Pakistan.

The Taliban swiftly regrouped. And with Pakistan’s support and its continuing alliance with al-Qaeda, it mounted an