Shakib added that trilateral cooperation among Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China connects regional countries and strengthens regional trade.
Sardar Ahmad Shakib, the Islamic Emirate’s Chargé d’Affaires in Islamabad, stated in a meeting at the Institute of Regional Studies in Islamabad that the Islamic Emirate does not permit any group to use Afghan soil against Pakistan.
During the session, titled “Strengthening Economic ties between Pakistan, Afghanistan & Central Asia” Shakib stressed that insecurity in Pakistan affects Afghanistan and other regional countries.
The Islamic Emirate’s Chargé d’Affaires in Islamabad said: “The Islamic Emirate and the Afghan people do not wish to interfere in the internal affairs of any country and have no intention to do so; rather, we desire stability in the country and region and wish for good relations with all neighbors.”
The diplomat from the Islamic Emirate added that trilateral cooperation among Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China connects regional countries and strengthens regional trade.
The Islamic Emirate’s Chargé d’Affaires in Islamabad pointed out that the lack of modern trade agreements between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the frequent closures of border crossings, customs restrictions, and sudden unilateral tariff increases are major obstacles to improving trade and economic relations between the two countries.
Sardar Ahmad Shakib added: “Our request is for Pakistan and Afghanistan to jointly establish a modern trade agreement and focus more on issues that would develop trade and transit, and improve trade relations between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia.”
Some political analysts believe that enhancing and strengthening Afghanistan’s political and economic relations, especially with Pakistan, is essential in addressing current issues.
“The Islamic Emirate should demonstrate to neighbors that it does not interfere in the internal affairs of any neighboring country and that it always seeks good relations with its neighbors,” Saleem Paigir, a political analyst, told TOLOnews.
“Afghanistan must have good, friendly relations with neighboring countries and, secondly, with the regional countries. Afghanistan’s geography is an economic corridor, which Pakistan can effectively use for trade with Central Asia,” said Fazl Rahman Orya, a political analyst.
Border tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the recurring closure of the Torkham crossing for various reasons are cited as factors that have consistently overshadowed the relations between the two countries.
Hanif stated that the necessary facilities have been provided to aid organizations to continue their activities.
The Ministry of Economy organized a consultative meeting aimed at strengthening effectiveness and transparency in the operations of NGOs, with representatives from the United Nations and the European Union in attendance.
Din Mohammad Hanif, the acting Minister of Economy, criticized the lack of aid reaching certain provinces and districts, calling for a stronger focus on developmental assistance for Afghanistan. Hanif stated that the necessary facilities have been provided to aid organizations to continue their activities.
“The majority of NGOs concentrate their efforts in major cities, particularly key urban centers such as Herat, Kabul, Jalalabad, Kandahar, and Mazar-e-Sharif, where flights are accessible. Meanwhile, some remote provinces remain almost deprived,” Hanif said.
UN officials at the meeting said that since August 2021, much of their aid has been allocated to humanitarian assistance, and that development aid will also be a focus in 2024. They added that 30% of the aid covers administrative and operational costs, while 70% is allocated directly to the Afghan people.
Richard Trenchard, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Afghanistan, stated: “And for your information, as a general rule, and across the world, including Afghanistan, the United Nations aspires to keep and to respect the established international delivery benchmark of 30% of budgets to cover staff, administration costs, et cetera, and 70%, so 30-70, of total budgets to cover operations and the support that goes to beneficiaries, 30-70. That’s the international standard benchmark around the world.”
Isabelle Moussard Carlsen, Country Director of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Afghanistan, reported that in 2024, their goal was to provide aid to 17.3 million people by August, but they managed to reach 14.4 million.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that they have provided necessary assistance to returning migrants and internally displaced persons in various sectors across Afghanistan.
Laurence Hart, IOM representative, said at the meeting: “Through the Border Consortium and UNHCR, we work with a number of partners to provide post-arrival humanitarian assistance at the two border (area) points on the Pakistan border (area) and two on the Iran border. This involves multi-purpose cash assistance, again through local financial service providers, health support, protection, wash, and of course accommodation and meals for those that require it. This year, over 310,000 returnees have been supported through this program.”
Stephanie Loose, Country Program Manager of the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat), said: “Our main aim is to create an enabling environment for people towards social, economic, and environmental development, including through living conditions, but also making sure people have better livelihoods. So we provide vocational trainings, and we also make sure that the living surroundings for people are adequate, because we understand socioeconomic vulnerability often is linked to where people live.”
OCHA also reported that from the beginning of this year until August, they have provided aid to over fourteen million people in Afghanistan.
Meeting Held to Enhance Efficiency, Accountability in NGO Operations
Both parties stressed the importance of utilizing the positive outcomes from the third Doha meeting and applying these results in the upcoming fourth meeting.
Qatar’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ahmed bin Saif Al-Thani, met with the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, to discuss arrangements for the fourth Doha meeting on Afghanistan.
According to Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, both parties stressed the importance of utilizing the positive outcomes from the third Doha meeting and applying these results in the upcoming fourth meeting.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar in a statement added: “The meeting touched on the need to leverage the positive momentum created by the success of the third Doha Meeting of Special Envoys on Afghanistan, and to build on its outcome in the fourth meeting to be held in Doha.”
“The three previous Doha meetings did not achieve tangible outcomes to shift engagement from a de facto framework to a de jure one. I hope that this meeting can pave the way for the Islamic Emirate to transition from this stage,” Mohammad Omar Nehzat, a political analyst, told TOLOnews.
Support for Afghanistan’s private sector, combating narcotics, and ensuring alternative livelihoods for farmers were among the key issues discussed in the third Doha meeting.
Suhail Shaheen, head of the Islamic Emirate’s Political Office in Qatar, told TOLOnews that if the agenda is shared with the Islamic Emirate and their conditions are met, their delegation will participate in the fourth Doha meeting.
The head of the Islamic Emirate’s Political Office in Qatar said: “The agenda for the upcoming Doha meeting should be shared with the Islamic Emirate beforehand, and our agenda should also be considered. We hope that this meeting will be fruitful and help resolve issues.”
Qatar has been one of the influential countries in recent political developments in Afghanistan, hosting at least three international meetings with special representatives from different countries for Afghanistan under the auspices of the United Nations.
The exact date of the fourth Doha meeting is not yet confirmed, and the Islamic Emirate has also not officially announced its participation. The fourth Doha meeting on Afghanistan is expected to be held before the end of this year.
Posing in a pink hijab in front of a window, 14-year-old Muska will soon be married “in exchange for a well and some solar panels”, explains the caption on her photograph.
There are dozens of images of Afghan women and girls like Muska at the Paris exhibition “No Woman’s Land”, which offers a glimpse into their private lives, despair and rare moments of joy.
Iranian-Canadian photographer Kiana Hayeri, 36, lived in Kabul for seven years and has regularly contributed to outlets including the New York Times and National Geographic.
Many tough stories are told in the exhibition but Hayeri said her feelings had been worsened by the changes in Afghanistan during the six months she worked on the project.
“Some of the women that, even two and a half years into Taliban’s returning to power, were still trying to do things and making it happen… well they also lost hope,” she added.
The photographer worked with French researcher Melissa Cornet, 32, to interview over 100 women and girls in seven Afghan provinces.
“One of the questions we asked the women was: ‘”Do you have any hope that your situation can improve under the Taliban?’,” said Cornet, a lawyer who lived in Kabul for over two years until the hardliners reclaimed Kabul.
“And almost systematically the answer was no.”
– ‘Locked up’ –
The Taliban have established what the UN has called “gender apartheid” since taking power in August 2021.
Women have been barred from education beyond primary school, visiting parks, gyms and beauty salons, or even going outside at almost any time without a chaperone.
One recent measure — following a hyper-strict interpretation of Islamic law like the others — even forbids women from speaking loudly in public.
For now, “there’s barely any light at the end of the tunnel,” Hayeri said.
Cornet said the haphazard layout of the exhibition, running until November 18 at the Refectoire des Cordeliers in Paris, recalls “how confined (Afghan women) now are to these interior spaces,” Cornet said.
“All of the women we met, except for a couple of encounters, it happened in their homes or at our home for security reasons, because there’s just no third places where we could safely meet,” she added.
Some photos show women or teenagers smiling, dancing or celebrating a birthday indoors.
Such moments claim “their right to joy, to freedom and to the celebration of their femininity,” one caption reads.
– ‘Change nothing’ –
Other pictures focus on silent acts of resistance, such as study in underground schools.
Most photos simply show how tragic everyday life can be for Afghan women.
In one, two cupped hands hold a ring belonging to Halima, who is “holding the wedding band of her husband, who died of a heart attack the day of his release from jail for activism,” the caption explains.
The portrait of Muska shows a girl recently expelled with her family from Pakistan, where she was born.
“Because her family is struggling financially, they accepted the marriage offer from the son of the landlord,” Cornet said.
Muska was effectively sold for “a well and solar panels… the equivalent of probably $300-$400,” she added.
Hayeri and Cornet’s knowledge of Afghanistan and their contacts allowed them to secure the poignant photos. Hayeri said she felt “heartbroken and helpless”.
“How’s it going to change anything?,” she asked.
“We know exactly how the situation is… it’s just that there’s no political will right now to do more to help them in Afghanistan, but also to help them leave Afghanistan and be welcome in Europe or in the US,” Cornet added.
The NATO coalition that fought a Taliban insurgency for 20 years before withdrawing in 2021 highlighted women’s rights as one of its major causes.
Critics say that has now been forgotten. “We just don’t talk enough about the responsibility we have” to Afghan women, Cornet said.
Paris show spotlights Afghan women who ‘lost hope’
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that Kabul’s groundwater could be depleted if no action is taken.
UNICEF stated on Tuesday, October 29, on the social media platform X that Kabul’s groundwater might run out by 2030 due to rapid urbanization and climate change.
UNICEF has not proposed a specific solution to prevent this crisis but mentioned that Roza Otunbayeva, the UN Special Representative in Afghanistan, and Tajudeen Oyewale, UNICEF’s representative in Afghanistan, visited water-scarce areas in Kabul.
The purpose of these UN officials’ visits to the water-crisis-affected regions was reported to be finding an effective solution to the ongoing crisis.
“Water is life. Due to rapid urbanization and climate change, there could be no ground water in Kabul by 2030, if we do not act now. We can stop this,” UNICEF said.
Our Rep @TajudeenOyewale and SRSG @otunbayeva went to meet affected communities & find out how to help meet this basic human need,” the organization added.
The organization emphasized that if “we take action,” this crisis can be prevented.
The worsening water crisis in Kabul is further intensified by climate change, leading to prolonged droughts and shrinking water sources. Rapid urbanization without sustainable planning has also strained the city’s limited water resources.
Mismanagement of water resources in Kabul has exacerbated the situation, with poor infrastructure and lack of proper regulation contributing to the depletion of groundwater. Addressing these issues requires immediate and collaborative efforts to ensure sustainable water management and protect the city from a severe water crisis.
UNICEF Warns Kabul’s groundwater could run dry by 2030, urges action to prevent crisis
Ahmad Reza Radan, the General Commander of Iran’s security forces, announced that 850,000 undocumented Afghan migrants have been deported from the country.
On Tuesday, October 29, Tasnim News Agency reported, quoting the Iranian official, that foreign nationals without proper documentation are not allowed to work or reside in Iran.
This comes amid increasing pressure and restrictions by the Islamic Republic against Afghan migrants, with authorities frequently emphasizing the deportation of undocumented migrants from the country.
Just yesterday, Nasser Farshid, the Police Commander of Kerman, stated that more than 38,000 undocumented migrants have been deported from the province this year alone.
He urged employers to refrain from providing work to undocumented migrants.
Previously, Iranian officials warned that by the end of this solar year, a total of two million undocumented migrants would be deported from the country.
Iran announces deportation of 850,000 undocumented Afghan migrants
They called on the UNAMA office to act regarding the payment of retirees’ pensions.
Several retirees once again held a protest gathering in front of the United Nations office in Kabul, protesting the non-payment of their pensions.
They called on the UNAMA office to act regarding the payment of retirees’ pensions.
Abdul Hakim, a retiree, said: “We came here to appeal to the United Nations. If the United Nations supports us and wants us to stand on our own feet, they must pay our pensions.”
Abdul Mohammad, another retiree, said: “We have spent everything we had, we have nothing left; only a single mattress remains in our home.”
Some other retirees added that they have repeatedly approached the Ministry of Finance and the Pension Fund for the payment of their pensions, but they have yet to receive a clear response.
Ghulam Ehsan Andish, a retiree, said: “We gathered here because it’s been over three years since the retirees’ pensions were frozen, and they still haven’t been paid to us.”
Although the Islamic Emirate has not recently commented on the payment of pensions, a spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate previously said that in the 1403 fiscal year budget, efforts were made to consider the needs of all groups entitled to funds within the budget.
Afghanistan has barely featured in next week’s United States presidential elections except in the most minor way, as a political football kicked about by the two candidates seeking to blame the other for the debacle of the 2021 withdrawal and the Taleban’s capture of power. Even so, will who wins the 5 November election – former Republican president and current contender Donald Trump or current Democratic vice president Kamala Harris – have an impact on American policy towards Afghanistan? AAN’s Kate Clark has been looking back through the archives and seeing how, in earlier elections after the 2001 intervention, when the US became the single most powerful foreign player in Afghanistan, the country featured heavily in presidential debates and asks how much influence the outcome of US presidential elections has had on Afghanistan.
Americans, famously, do not vote on foreign policy issues, so the fact that Afghanistan has been mentioned so often by presidential contenders over the last twenty years is significant. Sometimes, the debate between the two candidates has been about policy. Sometimes, Afghanistan has been used to symbolize something else, for example, George W Bush holding it up in 2004 as evidence that “freedom is on the march.” Determining whether US policy towards Afghanistan might have differed if a different man (or, in 2016, woman) had won successive presidencies since 2001 is tricky and strays into the counterfactual. Also, as will be seen below, not everything promised ahead of elections, in the US as elsewhere, gets delivered – sometimes, the opposite. However, the question is at least worth asking.
2004: Bush v Kerry, freedom and the unyoking of Afghanistan’s presidential and parliamentary elections
For the 2004 incumbent, Republican George W Bush, Afghanistan represented everything he believed was liberatory about America.[1] During the presidential debates against his Democratic rival, John Kerry, he repeatedly held up the Afghan presidential election – polling day was a month before the US elections, on 9 October – as evidence of the United States’ great destiny in bringing freedom to other nations, for example, in the first debate, held on 30 September (transcript here):[2]
This nation of ours has got a solemn duty to defeat this ideology of hate [al-Qaeda’s]. And that’s what they are. This is a group of killers who will not only kill here, but kill children in Russia, that’ll attack unmercifully in Iraq, hoping to shake our will. We have a duty to defeat this enemy. We have a duty to protect our children and grandchildren. The best way to defeat them is to never waver, to be strong, to use every asset at our disposal, is to constantly stay on the offensive and, at the same time, spread liberty. And that’s what people are seeing now is happening in Afghanistan. Ten million citizens have registered to vote. It’s a phenomenal statistic. That if given a chance to be free, they will show up at the polls. Forty-one percent of those 10 million are women.
The yoking of Afghanistan and Iraq – and elsewhere – into a single theatre of battle and the portrayal of the US as a liberator, saving other nations from a poorly defined ‘the enemy’, bent on evil, was classic Bush-era War on Terror rhetoric. It was a narrative that had catastrophic real-world consequences for the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq, but Bush used it to good effect on the 2004 campaign trail. In that first debate, he hammered the point home.
In Iraq, no doubt about it, it’s tough. It’s hard work. It’s incredibly hard. You know why? Because an enemy realizes the stakes. The enemy understands a free Iraq will be a major defeat in their ideology of hatred. That’s why they’re fighting so vociferously. They showed up in Afghanistan when they were there, because they tried to beat us and they didn’t. And they’re showing up in Iraq for the same reason. They’re trying to defeat us. And if we lose our will, we lose. But if we remain strong and resolute, we will defeat this enemy.
Bush held up the forthcoming Afghan election again in the second debate, on 8 October 2004, this time, casting it as one item on a list of the efforts he was undertaking to make America safe:
We’ll stay on the hunt of al Qaeda. We’ll deny sanctuary to these terrorists. We’ll make sure they do not end up with weapons of mass destruction. It’s the great nexus. The great threat to our country is that these haters under up with weapons of mass destruction. But our long-term security depends on our deep faith in liberty, and we’ll continue to promote freedom around the world. Freedom is on the march. Tomorrow, Afghanistan will be voting for a president. In Iraq, we’ll be having free elections and a free society will make this world more peaceful. God bless.
The third debate was held on 13 October 2004, following the Afghan poll, meaning Bush could then brag: “As a result of securing ourselves and ridding the Taliban out of Afghanistan, the Afghan people had elections this weekend. And the first voter was a 19-year-old woman. Think about that. Freedom is on the march.”
Kerry’s take on Afghanistan – he pretty much ignored the election, merely scorning its having been delayed three times – was to focus on what he called Bush’s “colossal error of judgement,” his distraction from what Kerry called the “centre of the war on terror,” Afghanistan, and his 2003 decision to invade Iraq. In the first debate of the 2004 contest, for example, Kerry accused Bush of having been so bent on invading Iraq that he left the Afghan battlefield open to America’s enemies, after foolishly allying the US with untrustworthy Afghan allies:
Saddam Hussein didn’t attack us. Osama bin Laden attacked us. Al Qaida attacked us. And when we had Osama bin Laden cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, 1,000 of his cohorts with him in those mountains. With the American military forces nearby and in the field, we didn’t use the best trained troops in the world to go kill the world’s number one criminal and terrorist. They outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, who only a week earlier had been on the other side fighting against us, neither of whom trusted each other. That’s the enemy that attacked us. That’s the enemy that was allowed to walk out of those mountains. That’s the enemy that is now in 60 countries, with stronger recruits.
Did moving troops to Iraq so that there were ten times more soldiers there than in Afghanistan mean that “Saddam Hussein was 10 times more important than Osama bin Laden”? Kerry asked.
One could today ask if Kerry’s reading of the situation, so different from Bush’s, would have led to a different US policy being pursued towards Afghanistan (and/or Iraq) had Kerry, not Bush won the 2004 election. It is at least possible that Kerry might have deployed more US troops to Afghanistan, as Barack Obama would do very decisively when he came to power in 2009, in the so-called surge (itself a copy of the second Bush term counter-insurgency surge of General David Petraeus in Iraq). Yet it is hard to see how more US fighting troops in Afghanistan on the ground could have been beneficial, given their actions were part of why an insurgency began.[3] Another question is whether the US, under a Kerry presidency, might have pulled back from working with ‘the warlords’. Here, it is difficult to see how, by this point, the civil war era strongmen could have been dislodged from the Republic’s political system: Bush’s decision in 2001 to work with anti-Taleban commanders and factions in toppling the first Islamic Emirate had put them firmly at the heart of the Islamic Republic.
Presidents Obama and Karzai on the White House Colonnade after meeting in the Oval Office. Photo: Pete Souza/White House photographer, 11 January 2013
2008, 2012: Obama v McCain, Obama v Romney, the ‘good war’, the surge and the transition
In 2008, Obama hammered home the very same message his fellow Democrat, John Kerry, had done four years earlier, this time against Republican contender, John McCain. Bush, he said, had fought the wrong war when he invaded Iraq in 2003. In the first presidential 2008 debate, held on 26 September, Obama promised to shift troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, “as quickly as possible, because it’s been acknowledged by the commanders on the ground the situation is getting worse, not better.”
We had the highest fatalities among U.S. troops this past year than at any time since 2002. And we are seeing a major offensive taking place – Al Qaida and Taliban crossing the border and attacking our troops in a brazen fashion. They are feeling emboldened. And we cannot separate Afghanistan from Iraq, because what our commanders have said is we don’t have the troops right now to deal with Afghanistan. So I would send two to three additional brigades to Afghanistan. Now, keep in mind that we have four times the number of troops in Iraq, where nobody had anything to do with 9/11 before we went in, where, in fact, there was no Al Qaida before we went in, but we have four times more troops there than we do in Afghanistan. And that is a strategic mistake, because every intelligence agency will acknowledge that Al Qaida is the greatest threat against the United States and that Secretary of Defense Gates acknowledged the central front – that the place where we have to deal with these folks is going to be in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.
As well as the extra deployment,[4] Obama said he would “press the Afghan government to make certain that they are actually working for their people” and deal with the “growing poppy trade.” He also promised to deal with Pakistan:
because Al Qaida and the Taliban have safe havens in Pakistan, across the border in the northwest regions, and although, you know, under George Bush, with the support of Senator McCain, we’ve been giving them [Islamabad] $10 billion over the last seven years, they have not done what needs to be done to get rid of those safe havens. And until we do, Americans here at home are not going to be safe.
Had John McCain won in 2008, however, US policy would probably not have been so different. Unlike Obama, he fully supported the war in Iraq, but he also wanted to copy the Iraq surge in Afghanistan and expand the US military presence there as well. McCain also spoke about the ‘problem’ of Pakistan. In that first debate, he said the US had to work with the Pakistani government, acknowledging that “the new president of Pakistan, Kardari (sic), has got his hands full” and that “this area on the border has not been governed since the days of Alexander the Great.” McCain had been to Waziristan, he said, and could “see how tough that terrain is. It’s ruled by a handful of tribes.” He said they would have to “help the Pakistanis go into these areas and obtain the allegiance of the people. And it’s going to be tough. They’ve intermarried with Al Qaida and the Taliban. And it’s going to be tough. But we have to get the cooperation of the people in those areas.”
Pakistan would remain a thorn in the side of the US military until it left in 2021 – it proved impossible to ‘deal’ with it when the bulk of US supplies to Afghanistan came over its land routes. Obama’s surge (opposed at the time by his vice president, Joe Biden, who pushed for a ‘light footprint’, counter-terrorism policy – see our 2008 reporting on his stance here) would prove futile and costly in both Afghan and foreign lives. Nevertheless, four years later, in 2012, Obama would assert the success of his Afghan policy. In the second presidential debate with his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, held on 16 October 2012, Obama said:
We ended the war in Iraq, refocused our attention on those who actually killed us on 9/11. And as a consequence, Al Qaeda’s core leadership has been decimated. In addition, we’re now able to transition out of Afghanistan in a responsible way, making sure that Afghans take responsibility for their own security. And that allows us also to rebuild alliances and make friends around the world to combat future threats.
Romney described the strategy he would pursue if he became president as “pretty straightforward”: “Go after the bad guys, to make sure we do our very best to interrupt them, to – to kill them, to take them out of the picture.” He also said US policy had to be broader than that. The key, in his opinion, was to pursue “a pathway to get the Muslim world to be able to reject extremism on its own.” To ensure there was not “another Iraq … another Afghanistan,” they had to go after “these – these jihadists,” but also “help the Muslim world.” That meant promoting economic development, better education, gender equality, the rule of law and helping “these nations create civil societies.”
Romney did agree with Obama that the surge had been successful, though, and asserted that Afghan forces were now stronger, larger in number and ready to “step in to provide security.” He explicitly said he would withdraw US troops by 2014, the date established by then President Hamed Karzai, the US and NATO to end the International Stabilisation and Assistance Force (ISAF) mission, when security would be fully in the hands of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). The transition did indeed happen at the end of 2014, but under Obama’s leadership, the foreign troops morphed into NATO’s non-combat ‘train, advise and assist’ mission, Resolute Support, with the US retaining an additional can-be-combat mission until the end.
2016: Trump v Clinton, when Afghanistan fell off the agenda
In the three 2016 presidential debates, Afghanistan was mentioned just once and then only in passing by Democrat Hilary Clinton.[5]The Guardian’s Simon Tisdall was scathing about the two candidates ignoring what had become the US’s longest war. Clinton, he said, was keen not to “draw attention to unfinished business in Afghanistan,” given the war was “deeply unpopular with voters,” while for his part,
Trump seems to understand little and care less. He once said the war was a “terrible mistake” but has no known policy. Even the Taliban feel affronted. A Talib spokesman, quoted by analyst Yochi Dreazen, commented after the first debate that Trump says “anything that comes to his tongue” and is “not serious”.
If Clinton had won that election, we wrote, Obama’s Secretary of State could have been expected to maintain his policy as president. However, she lost and Trump had given no idea during the campaign as to what he would do in Afghanistan. We scrutinised tweets from his official account and other comments to try to glean his policy after winning the election. In 2013, he had favoured withdrawal: “Let’s get out of Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed by the Afghanis [sic] we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense! Rebuild the USA.” He had also tweeted: “It is time to get out of Afghanistan. We are building roads and schools for people that hate us. It is not in our national interests.” Interviewed live on CNN in October 2015, he had said the US had made a terrible mistake getting involved in Afghanistan in the first place, but asserted that he had never said the US made a mistake going into Afghanistan. Wondering whether US troops were “going to be there for the next 200 years?” he said, it would be a long time, but that:
OK, wouldn’t matter, I never said it. Afghanistan is a different kettle. Afghanistan is next to Pakistan, it’s an entry in. You have to be careful with the nuclear weapons. It’s all about the nuclear weapons. By the way, without the nukes, it’s a whole different ballgame.
Trump’s past comments had given little away: they were typically incoherent and contradictory, but did suggest he might favour ending the intervention. His plans, as president, did eventually materialise, far later, on 21 August 2017 (transcript here) when he admitted he had not followed his instincts. US forces would be staying in Afghanistan, he said, although he insisted the US would not be “nation-building,” but “killing terrorists.” It upset his conservative base. His former chief strategist, Steve Bannon’s Breitbart website, condemned the president for coming up with a strategy that was little different from Obama’s: the president, had “flip-flop[ed” (reporting here). “My original instinct,” Trump announced, “was to pull out.” Once in power, however, and having studied Afghanistan “in great detail and from every conceivable angle” and holding “many meetings over many months,” he had changed his mind about what America’s “core interests in Afghanistan” necessitated.
Trump’s Afghan strategy looked to be what had been drawn up by the US commander on the ground, General John Nicholson, in partnership with then President Ashraf Ghani and the Afghan government, seven months earlier. (Read a transcript of Nicholson’s testimony to Congress in February 2017 here and our analysis of the plan here). After months of mulling over what to do, Trump had accepted his military advisors’ counsel on the need to stay in Afghanistan.
If he had been a different man, so much of what Trump decided then might have come back to haunt him. He said the sacrifices already made by US servicepeople meant they “deserve[d] a plan for victory.” The US was going to fight to win and it would win, said Trump, because “the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable, he said. “A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, would instantly fill, just as happened before September 11th.”
A core pillar of our new strategy is a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions. I’ve said it many times how counterproductive it is for the United States to announce in advance the dates we intend to begin, or end, military options. We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities. Conditions on the ground – not arbitrary timetables – will guide our strategy from now on. America’s enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out. I will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will.
His words were a reaction to Obama’s announcements of withdrawal dates as the US army went from surge to drawing down and handing authority for the security of Afghanistan to the ANSF. This move had satisfied anti-war Democrats, but effectively helped the Taleban with their war planning. His later fixed timetable for withdrawal under the 2020 Doha agreement would help the Taleban in just the same way.
Trump’s second U-turn committed the US to a withdrawal of troops, on a fixed timetable and with specific numbers being drawn down at each stage. The only real condition placed on the Taleban in the 29 February 2020 Doha agreement, reached by Trump’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, the Afghan-American Zalmay Khalilzad, was that the insurgents should cease attacking foreign military and civilian targets. Their promises on foreign fighters were vague in the extreme.[6] The deal had been reached by Khalilzad directly with the Taleban and, at their insistence, had excluded the Afghan government from negotiations. As we wrote at the time, the US, by contrast, signed up to many specific obligations in addition to withdrawing its troops – albeit many of the promises were what the Kabul government would have to do, such as releasing thousands of Taleban prisoners. (see our analysis, and the simultaneously released Joint Declaration between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the United States of America for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan).[7]
The ‘intra-Afghan talks’ between the Taleban and the Republic, also promised in the Doha agreement, given the waning and ultimately ending threat of US military power, always looked like a futile exercise. As the deal played out, the US threatened Ghani into compliance with the agreement, including a warning that Washington would cut USD one billion in aid unless the Afghan government released 5,000 Taleban prisoners. It also forced the ANSF to take up a defensive posture, only relenting to allow ‘active defence’ (that is, pre-emptive strikes against the Taleban were allowed, but not offensive strikes). These were intended to be confidence-building measures aimed at fostering an atmosphere conducive to the ‘intra-Afghan talks’. Not surprisingly, ANSF morale plummeted, while Taleban morale soared.[8] (For our analysis of this period, see The Taleban’s rise to power: As the US prepared for peace, the Taleban prepared for war and Afghanistan’s Conflict in 2021 (2): Republic collapse and Taleban victory in the long-view of history.)
2020: Trump v Biden, the withdrawal continues
When Americans went to the polls to elect their next president in November 2020, the Doha agreement had about six months to run. Trump had committed to withdrawing all US forces by the last day of April 2021. This was a momentous time for Afghanistan, with the US playing an outsize role. Yet, in the 2020 election debates, Afghanistan was, again, barely mentioned – just one passing reference by Joe Biden in the third debate, held on 20 October, who used the situation in Afghanistan to criticise Trump over his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.[9] In spring 2020, Biden had written that he wanted to end America’s “forever wars,” albeit presenting a more nuanced stance in a 10 September 2020 Stars and Stripes interview, which reported: “Biden said conditions in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq are so complicated that he cannot promise full withdrawal of troops in the near future. However, he supports a small U.S. military footprint whose primary mission would be to facilitate special operations against the Islamic State, or ISIS, and other terror organizations.”
In the end, the 2020 election exemplified how who won the US presidential contest had no effect on US policy. By the time Trump left office in January 2021, troop numbers were down from 15,500 to 2,500: indeed, he had hurried to withdraw troops in greater numbers than his deal with the Taleban merited ahead of the election and a month before the poll, on 8 October, had even promised to bring all the troops home by Christmas (tweet here). Trump had left Biden little room for manoeuvre, should he not have wanted to go ahead with the Doha agreement (see our analysis of his choices after his victory here). However, Biden embraced the deal. He kept Zalmay Khalilzad on and pursued Trump’s policy in full, only extending the deadline for the “final withdrawal” from 30 April to 11 September, in an announcement made on 14 April 2021.
President Biden chose to end his country’s military intervention on a date meaningful to Americans. They would “be out of Afghanistan before we mark the 20th anniversary of that heinous attack on September 11th,” he declared. As so often, US Afghan policy was shaped by what an American president assumed would be good news for his domestic audience, rather than taking into account the possible consequences for Afghanistan – good or bad. Others at the time were urging caution: many of his NATO allies were unhappy with the withdrawal, as were some of Biden’s advisors. However, he followed the Trump plan, with little thought for how it might actually play out, as we wrote:
How to keep crucial tasks going, such as maintaining aircraft, had not been considered. US air support to the ANSF fell away. Although it was eventually ramped up, it came late in the Taleban’s offensive, too late to demonstrate the support which might have helped rally Afghan troops on the ground. The withdrawing US forces appeared to coordinate more with their enemies than with the allies they were leaving behind: witness the unannounced overnight vacation of the Bagram airbase, with the electricity left on a twenty-minute timer. The US appeared driven by a desire just to get the withdrawal done and over, a ‘ripping-off of the Band-Aid plaster’ and a hope for the best.
In response to Biden confirming that US troops would be withdrawn, the Taleban intensified their attacks and, facing a demoralised and poorly led ANSF and a population which had grown to have little faith in their government, began to capture districts and then provinces, slowly at first and then, like dominoes (see an overview written in December 2021 here). They captured the capital on 21 August 2021. The troops left earlier than planned, on 30 August, presumably so as not to besmirch the 9/11 anniversary.
A joke in Washington DC in the months after that fateful withdrawal asked what Biden’s policy on Afghanistan was. The punchline: not to have the country mentioned in a Washington Post or New York Times headline. The world’s superpower had, in the end, dropped Afghanistan as swiftly and wholeheartedly as it had picked it up. In the single Trump versus Kamala Harris debate this year, held on 11 September 2024, Afghanistan was mentioned only eventually, after the moderator asked the candidates about Afghanistan three times before they responded.
Harris said she agreed with Biden’s decision to pull out: it had saved American taxpayers USD 300 million a day that they had been paying “for that endless war.” Donald Trump, she said, had “negotiated one of the weakest deals you can imagine,” one that even his national security adviser had said was “a weak, terrible deal,” He had “bypassed the Afghan government,” she said and negotiated directly with a terrorist organization called the Taliban. The negotiation involved the Taliban getting 5,000 terrorists, Taliban terrorists released.” She also recalled the September 2019 Trump invitation to “the Taliban to Camp David,” an example of how he “has consistently disparaged and demeaned members of our military, fallen soldiers.”[11]
In response, Trump defended what he called a “very good agreement”, saying it had stopped the Taleban killing lots of US soldiers with snipers (not true) and that he had decided to negotiate directly with “Abdul … the head of the Taliban” (presumably, Head of the Taleban Political Commission, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar). He also appeared to claim that his administration had broken off the deal because the Taleban had not met various conditions: “The agreement said you have to do this, this, this, this, this, and they didn’t do it. They didn’t do it. The agreement was, was terminated by us because they didn’t do what they were supposed to do.”[12]
As to any thoughts on forward-looking policy on Afghanistan, there were none, from either candidate. Whoever wins the race in November, neither has given any sign that US policy on Afghanistan might change, that American hostility to the Islamic Emirate might relent or ramp up, that sanctions – or waivers – be raised, or humanitarian aid stopped, rather than just, as it is now diminishing. One can envisage Trump taking a harder line on the Emirate than Biden has done and that he would also stop Afghans settling in the United States as refugees, currently possible for some under the Refugee Admissions Programme. Yet, it is also difficult to imagine Harris softening the US line on the Emirate and risk enraging the feminists among her domestic backers. However, there is no evidence of what either Trump or Harris might do, or that they have even given the matter any thought, should they win on 5 November.[13]
The Guantanamo exception
The one area of policy most likely to be affected by the outcome of this year’s US elections is something not yet touched on in this report, the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, which has held detainees outside the laws of war or criminal justice since January 2002, established as part of Bush’s War on Terror. Since 2009, changes in the presidency have affected not only Guantanamo, but also the United States’ use of torture.
When Obama came to power in 2009, he banned torture – which Bush had authorised – although he declined to bring anyone to justice for past abuses. He also vowed to close Guantanamo, but was thwarted by Congress, and his own poor planning (for more on this, see the author’s 2016 report, ‘Kafka in Cuba The Afghan Experience in Guantánamo’ and 2021 report ‘Kafka in Cuba, a Follow-Up Report: Afghans Still in Detention Limbo as Biden Decides What to do’). At the end of his second term, as the implications of the victory of the pro-torture, pro-Guantanamo Donald Trump in the 2016 election became clear, the outgoing administration scrambled to get as many detainees out of Guantanamo as possible – some with just hours to play. During Trump’s presidency, just one inmate was to leave Guantanamo.[14] Again, in 2020, with the election of Joe Biden, more inmates were to leave the prison camp, including the second but last Afghan to be held there, Asadullah Harun Gul. He was released in June 2022, partly because of earlier efforts of Hezb-e Islami elements within the Ashraf Ghani government before it collapsed to get their comrade home and also due to the tenacity of Gul’s American lawyers (see the author’s report, Free at Last: The Afghan, Harun Gul, is released from Guantanamo after 15 years).
30 men still remain in Guantanamo, including the last Afghan, Muhammad Rahim, who was also the last man to be rendered and tortured by the CIA (our latest report on him can be read here). If Trump wins, transfers out of the camp would likely dry up again. If Harris is victorious, Rahim might be freed. As to the camp itself, the two previous Democratic presidents promised but failed to close it down and administrations of both stripes have fought in the US courts in the dirtiest of fashions (for examples, see the author’s two ‘Kafka in Cuba’ reports) to keep men detained when detainees have petitioned for habeas corpus. Almost a quarter of a century after it opened, the closure of Guantanamo is still not in sight. Its existence has fallen off the US political agenda even more so than Afghanistan.
Conclusion: Afghanistan forgotten
Reading through the transcripts of the presidential debates, what is striking is that the leaders of the United States, who have held so much sway over Afghanistan for two decades, so often got their facts about the country wrong or have used them to promote whatever tack they were taking with American voters, from George Bush holding up Afghanistan as a symbol of liberation, onwards.
As to whether changes in the presidency made a difference to US policy, it seems that, until part-way through the 2016 Trump presidency, policy on Afghanistan was largely driven by the military and the perspective of generals on what was needed to fight the Taleban – and rationalised by the politicians. Biden had been an early advocate of withdrawing forces and argued for this when he became vice president in 2009. Obama, at that time, insisted that Afghanistan was ‘the good war’ and embarked on the surge. In the US, it is always more difficult for Democratic presidents to be seen to be shirking a fight: they risk a domestic backlash for being seen to be weak. Perhaps not surprisingly then, it was the Republican president, Donald Trump who withdrew the bulk of US troops, before Biden, as he had long wished, pulled the final soldiers out.
As for what lies ahead, the presidential campaign for 2024 has given no indication of whether current policy will be maintained or changed. What is certain, though, is that Afghanistan is no longer on the US political agenda.
Edited by Roxanna Shapour
References
References
↑1
The question could also be asked to whether, if John Kerry had won in 2000 rather than George Bush, history might already have been different by the 2004 elections, but that is beyond the scope of this report.
↑2
Transcripts of presidential and vice-presidential debates (1960-2020) can be read on the Commission on Presidential Debates website.
↑3
US actions included mass indiscriminate arrests, night raids involving the use of dogs in people’s homes and the stripping of men in public, the use of torture, being manipulated by Afghans keen to get US forces to target their personal or factional enemies, and alliances generally with local Afghan strongmen, increasing their ability to oppress the population and monopolise power. For a condensed look at this, focussing on detentions, and including sources for further reading, see pages 9-14 of the author’s ‘Kafka in Cuba The Afghan Experience in Guantánamo’.
↑4
One brigade consists of 3-5,000 soldiers. Obama’s ‘surge’ was to increase the US forces on the ground far more than he promised at the election, by 51,000, to more than 100,000 soldiers at their peak.
↑5
Clinton used as evidence that membership of NATO was useful for America the alliance’s invoking of article 5 and its collective defence principle following the 9/11 attacks, in the first debate, held on 26 September 2016.
This agreement puts few obligations on the Taleban. The movement has committed itself not to “allow any of its members, other individual or groups, including al-Qa’ida to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.” The Taleban are also specifically committed to not allowing released prisoners to threaten the security of the US and its allies. The hope that US ‘allies’ might include Afghanistan, ie Afghan government forces and civilians living in government-controlled areas, was dashed by the Taleban’s resumption of violence against Afghan forces the day after the agreement was signed (more on which below).
As to Taleban commitments on al-Qaeda and other groups, they comprise: “send[ing] a clear message” that they “have no place in Afghanistan”; not hosting them; preventing them from recruiting, training and fundraising; instructing members of the Taleban not to cooperate with them; not providing visas, passports or other documents allowing them to enter Afghanistan and; dealing “with those seeking asylum or residence in Afghanistan” in a way “that such persons do not pose a threat” to the US and its allies. There is no provision that commits the Taleban to hand over or expel foreign fighters. Indeed, the term ‘foreign fighters’ is not used at all; rather they are referred to as those posing a threat to the US and its allies.
The movement has committed itself not to “allow any of its members, other individual or groups, including al-Qa’ida to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.” The Taleban are also specifically committed to not allowing released prisoners to threaten the security of the US and its allies. … As to Taleban commitments on al-Qaeda and other groups, they comprise: “send[ing] a clear message” that they “have no place in Afghanistan”; not hosting them; preventing them from recruiting, training and fundraising; instructing members of the Taleban not to cooperate with them; not providing visas, passports or other documents allowing them to enter Afghanistan and; dealing “with those seeking asylum or residence in Afghanistan” in a way “that such persons do not pose a threat” to the US and its allies. There is no provision that commits the Taleban to hand over or expel foreign fighters. Indeed, the term ‘foreign fighters’ is not used at all; rather they are referred to as those posing a threat to the US and its allies.
↑8
AAN guest author, Andrew Quilty, documented in interviews conducted in summer 2020 with members of the ANSF and the Taleban how the US strategy helped boost Taleban confidence, while denting morale among government forces:
For the Taleban and their sympathisers, the [February 2020] agreement is seen as a reward for the sacrifices made during the 15-year insurgency. With the threat of being targeted by government or US forces now low, morale among fighters has soared. According to those AAN spoke with, the fight against the United States brought the agreement to withdraw and, in the meantime, to abstain from offensive operations…
Government forces are widely distrustful of American intentions and see the US as having made the Doha agreement in bad faith, with scant regard for the outcome for Afghans themselves. Most of those who spoke to AAN see the agreement as benefitting the US and the Taleban at the expense of the Afghan government and the ANSF, who, they point out, are still dying every day. Most members of the ANSF that AAN spoke with also expressed frustration over the government’s sudden passivity toward the Taleban. After the severe Taleban losses inflicted by last year’s intense US air campaign and the fear wrought by widespread night raids, Ghani’s orders after Doha – to defend only – have allowed the Taleban unfettered control in areas already under their sway and greater freedom to impose themselves in contested areas, most notably on major roads and highways. To many government and security officials, regardless of whether it might serve the purported goal of peace, the new orders are militarily weak and politically foolish.
↑9
In the third debate, held on 20 October 2020, Biden said:
I don’t understand why this President is unwilling to take on Putin when he’s actually paying bounties to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan, when he’s engaged in activities that are trying to destabilize all of NATO. I don’t know why he doesn’t do it but it’s worth asking the question. Why isn’t that being done? Any country that interferes with us will, in fact, pay a price because they’re affecting our sovereignty.
American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. We spent over a trillion dollars. We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong — incredibly well equipped — a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies.
We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries, provided for the maintenance of their air force — something the Taliban doesn’t have. Taliban does not have an air force. We provided close air support.
We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future.
There’s some very brave and capable Afghan special forces units and soldiers, but if Afghanistan is unable to mount any real resistance to the Taliban now, there is no chance that 1 year — 1 more year, 5 more years, or 20 more years of U.S. military boots on the ground would’ve made any difference.
And here’s what I believe to my core: It is wrong to order American troops to step up when Afghanistan’s own armed forces would not. If the political leaders of Afghanistan were unable to come together for the good of their people, unable to negotiate for the future of their country when the chips were down, they would never have done so while U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan bearing the brunt of the fighting for them.
↑11
The secret summit would have been held in September 2019, attended by Trump and then, in separate meetings, Ashraf Ghani and the Head of the Taleban’s Political Commission, their lead negotiator, Abdul Ghani Baradar. Trump announced that it had been cancelled after the Taleban killed a US soldier. See media reporting here and here).
On 1 October, we saw a change of leadership on Afghan policy. Tom West, the hard-working Special Representative, who had been in post since October 2021, has left (State Department here) and replaced by career diplomat John Pommersheim, who was most recently US Ambassador to Tajikistan and has also served in Russia and Kazakhstan (see his statement here).
↑14
The one detainee who left Guantanamo during the Trump presidency was Saudi Ahmed al-Darbi, who was transferred after a plea agreement which saw him plead guilty to charges relating to an attack on a French oil tanker in 2002 and serving out the balance of a 13-year prison sentence in his home country. See ‘Detainee Transfer Announced’, US Department of Defence press release, 2 May 2018.
America Decides: But will who wins the US election make any difference to Afghanistan?
Former U.S. President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for the 2024 election, criticized what he described as the mishandling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, stating that the Bagram Air Base should not have been abandoned.
In his latest interview, Trump called the U.S. exit from Afghanistan “horrible” and “a major mistake.”
According to Trump, American troops should have been the last to leave Afghanistan, not among the first as part of the plan.
Throughout his campaign, Trump has frequently raised the issue of the Afghanistan withdrawal, using it as a point of attack against the Democrats’ campaign, led by Kamala Harris.
In his recent interview, Trump highlighted the strategic significance of Bagram Air Base, mentioning its proximity to locations in China where nuclear weapons are reportedly being produced.
He emphasized that the United States should never have left this base.
Trump’s criticisms of the Afghanistan withdrawal are part of a broader strategy to question the current administration’s decisions on national security.
By focusing on the strategic importance of Bagram, Trump aims to frame the withdrawal as a misstep with long-term consequences.
With the 2024 election approaching, the handling of Afghanistan’s exit continues to be a key talking point in U.S. politics, reflecting the ongoing debates over military strategy, foreign policy, and national security.
Trump criticizes Afghanistan withdrawal, calls abandoning Bagram base a ‘Major Mistake’
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has emphasized the importance of Afghanistan in ensuring security, peace, and stability in the region, stating that a terrorism-free Afghanistan would benefit all parties involved.
Zhang Ming, the Secretary-General of the organization, stated in an interview on Monday, October 28 that peace and stability in the region are closely tied to peace and stability in Afghanistan. From this perspective, the issue of Afghanistan holds significant regional importance.
He also called for the establishment of an inclusive government in Afghanistan, one that, according to him, should include the participation of all political representatives of the people.
The Secretary-General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization further clarified that, “We wish for Afghanistan to become a country free from terrorism, war, and drugs.”
Regarding the formation of an inclusive government in Afghanistan, Mr. Ming expressed hope that, in the future, a government would be established in Afghanistan with broad participation from all political, ethnic, and religious groups.
The statements from the SCO underscore the critical importance of a peaceful and stable Afghanistan for regional security and cooperation. The organization’s call for inclusivity highlights the ongoing international concerns about political representation and governance in Afghanistan.
As regional stakeholders continue to engage with Afghanistan, the international community’s hope remains that an inclusive political framework and a focus on eradicating terrorism and drug-related issues will pave the way for lasting peace and stability in the region.
This approach aims to foster a more secure and prosperous future for Afghanistan and its neighbors.
SCO support peaceful and inclusive government in Afghanistan
Afghanistan Peace Campaign
