Opinion: Winning every battle and losing the war: What went wrong in Afghanistan
The attacks on September 11, 2001 galvanised the global community into action in a way few events have. There was widespread support for international military intervention in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda’s leadership and training bases and to prevent Afghanistan from being a safe haven for terrorists. Both al-Qaeda and the Taliban that supported them fell away quickly in the face of coalition and local anti-Taliban forces.
The situation in Afghanistan today is the result: it is the inevitable destination of a journey without a strategy. Meanwhile, many ordinary Afghans were wondering what we were still doing there. More than once in my interactions with local leaders I was met with the view that they understood the revenge we took on al-Qaeda and the Taliban but didn’t understand why we were still in their country, imposing foreign values. They wanted to be left alone, they wanted foreign influences to go away. What they wanted was offered by the Taliban.
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