A decade on, Afghanistan can’t seem to get past its future

Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, a former right hand man to the reclusive leader of the Taliban, believes there is only one way to end a decade of fighting in Afghanistan. Return the hardline Islamists to power. Foreign troops are starting to head home anyway, he argues, and the Taliban are tough enough to keep on fighting for years.

“The only way to finish the fight against the Taliban is to bring them to power and get foreigners out,” Muttawakil said. Besides, he adds, corruption, insecurity and immorality have flourished since US-backed troops ousted the group from Kabul, and their return would end much of that.

Other Afghans are not as enthusiastic about the reappearance in government of a group they remember as cruel and oppressive rulers. But as foreign troops start to head home with the war far from over, it is a future many are planning for.

“When the US leave, in one week, the Taliban will return. I believe 100% they will take back power, whether the Afghan people want them or not,” said Khalid Ahmad, who sells women’s clothes adorned with glitter and embroidery.

“If they return, they’ll reintroduce their Islamic laws, they will do the same as they did before. If that happens, I won’t leave, but I doubt I will be able to have a business like this.”

Confidence in the Afghan police and army, driven by corruption, drug use and illiteracy, is not high. So there is a growing sense that the Taliban are likely to be back, either through force or through a settlement more advantageous to the group than to departing Western powers.

Many are weary of the violence after three decades of fighting. The return of the insurgent group would be preferable to another descent into full-blown civil war.

And although foreign troops were initially welcomed as liberators across swathes of anti-Taliban Afghanistan, their presence has brought many deaths, and the billions of dollars channelled into the country funded corruption as much as change.