‘between the dragon and his wrath’, 1994–2017the ageing and sick president is able to meet such challenges. Indeed one
wonders if anyone is capable of doing so.
Ordinary Afghans meanwhile have to try and live their lives as best
they can in a country beset by insecurity, a dysfunctional government and
a seemingly endless and irresolvable civil war. The only political solution
offered by the international community boils down to a power-sharing
agreement with the Taliban, Hikmatyar and other radical Islamic jihadists.
For Afghans, especially Shi‘as, Hazaras, Uzbeks and women, such a coalition
is even more frightening than the continuation of the insurgency. Rather
than solving Afghanistan’s problems this is more a council of despair.
This is hardly the future Afghans anticipated when the United States
and its allies intervened in October 2001, nor is it one they deserve. Today
all inhabitants of Afghanistan under the age of forty have known noth-
ing but war, displacement and the social and economic insecurity that is
an inevitable consequence of conflict. Unlike the foreign military, inter-
national advisers and aid personnel, Afghans do not have the luxury of
withdrawing to California, Geneva, the Home Counties or a beach in
New Zealand unless, of course, they risk their lives at the hands of people
smugglers – something that thousands of desperate Afghans are increas-
ingly prepared to do. So while American and nato politicians, military
strategists, academics and the Western press engage in post-conflict
heart-searching about what went wrong with the Afghanistan ‘experiment’
and whether it was worth the cost in cash and lives, it is Afghans who have
to face the consequences of a foreign intervention poorly conceived and
badly executed. For Afghans and Afghanistan, Enduring Freedom remains
a very distant dream.