Back to the Future

It is unarguable that the West got into Afghanistan in October 2001 without a clear idea either of what it was getting into or of how it was going to get out. Without realising it, the West became involved in a multi‑player, multi‑dimensional, multi‑decade civil conflict, the origins of which go back many years. It is an unresolved struggle, over the nature of the Afghan polity, between Islam and secularism, tradition and modernism, town and country, Sunni and Shia, farmer and nomad, Pashtun and Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara. Unless and until those problems, and Afghanistan’s relations with its neighbours and near neighbours, are addressed through an ambitious and continuing jirga ‑like process, internal and external, sponsored by the US and the UN, supported by the Permanent Five Members of the UN Security Council (the US, Russia, China, France and Britain), NATO and the EU, and engaging all regional players, conflict will continue.