The US and NATO intervention after September 11, 2001 in Afghanistan accompanied unfulfilled promises of the Bonn Conference in December of the same year. The brief but successful military intervention against the Taliban regime raised the expectations of both the peoples of Afghanistan and international community for a short engagement resulting in stability and democratic governance in that beleaguered country. Unfortunately, after more than a decade and half of war the peoples of Afghanistan feel betrayed by the outcomes of US-NATO war. A war that has cost the US taxpayers over one trillion dollars but has installed, allegedly, one of the most corrupt regimes and resulted in a resurgent Taliban and now Daesh with vengeance. Were US-NATO promises deliverable? If so, how? Is there still a hope for stabilizing and improving governance in Afghanistan? If so, how? Or should we expect more of the same?
Nazif M. Shahrani is Professor of Anthropology, Central Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington, Indiana. He researches Islamic movements, identity politics in failed/failing nation-states, Muslim family and gender dynamics, and political ecology of state-society relations in Soviet and post-Soviet Central Asia, Southwestern Asia and the Middle East. He has published widely, and his edited volume on Modern Afghanistan: Impact of 40 Years of War and Violence, is due to be published shortly by Indiana University Press. He visits the region frequently and he was in Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan during June-July, 2017.