This lecture highlights and discusses five areas of Americas failure in Afghanistan:
- Failure in understanding and addressing the international and regional dimensions of war in Afghanistan, particularly Pakistans interests and long-term objectives (2001-2021)
- Failure in understanding and addressing the state-society relations in Afghanistan and developing a meaningful and context-specific political legitimacy which led to an ethnocentric and top-down state-building policy and the internal collapse of the state (2001-2021)
- Failure in developing a comprehensive political settlement agenda since September 2018 which led to Khalilzads Taliban-centric vision and the ignorance of diverse dimensions of the conflict and conflict management
- Failure on the battleground which led to the collapse of Kabul and the domination of the Taliban which provides safe haven to several transnational terrorist organizations
- Failure in maintaining Americas long-term interest as Afghanistans most significant partner since 9/11 in Asia (in a broader context).
Yaqub Ibrahimi is an adjunct professor and a lecturer of Political Science at Carleton University in Ottawa. His research interests include international relations, international security, political violence, and conflict management with a special focus on Afghanistan, the Middle East, and South Asia. His work has appeared in Terrorism and Political Violence, Small Wars and Insurgencies, and elsewhere. His forthcoming book with the University of Michigan Press examines the nexus of fragile states and political violence in the Islamic world.
