Afghanistan Peace CampaignA Conversation With Laurel Miller and Graeme Smith
Foreign Affiars
Published on August 27, 2026
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Five years ago this month, the United States ended its war in Afghanistan. Washington’s exit was chaotic; as Taliban forces swept through the country and the U.S.-backed government collapsed, officials scrambled to evacuate tens of thousands of Afghans who might fall victim to repression and retribution. In the years since, Afghanistan has practically vanished from American foreign policy discussion. But the situation in the country remains dire, and the collective forgetting of the United States’ longest war carries costs of its own.
Laurel Miller and Graeme Smith have each spent many years working on and within Afghanistan. Miller, now president of the Asia Foundation, was a longtime U.S. diplomat who became a top official focused on Afghanistan from 2013 to 2017. Smith worked as a political affairs officer for the United Nations in Afghanistan from 2015 to 2018 before serving as an Afghanistan analyst for the International Crisis Group.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Miller and Smith on Tuesday, August 25, about the lessons and legacy of the American war in Afghanistan, how the country has changed under Taliban rule, and the questions that U.S. policymakers should grapple with moving forward.
Sources:
“The Myth of a Responsible Withdrawal From Afghanistan” by Laurel Miller
“The World Has No Choice But to Work With the Taliban” by Graeme Smith and Ibraheem Bahiss
This episode of The Foreign Affairs Interview was produced by Rachel Powell and Kanishk Tharoor, with audio engineering by Todd Yeager and Christopher Koch and original music by Robin Hilton. Special thanks to Irina Hogan.