“We need to close the book on a 20-year war,” is how a US official put it when he broke the news on Tuesday that the last US troops would be out of Afghanistan by 11 September.
Two decades on, what does this “book” say about the country that some 10,000 US-led Nato forces will soon leave behind?
It’s a dramatically different country than the shattered land and pariah state of the Taliban toppled in the US-led invasion of 2001 after the 9/11 attacks.
But this withdrawal window is decisive. It could accelerate a push towards peace, or a descent into violence that shreds the more open society which has been taking root – however slowly and unevenly – over the past two decades.
Afghanistan has been in a state of fratricidal warfare since the Taliban entered the scene, this will increase in intensity about two minutes after the troops leave.
