“The current conditions in Afghanistan do not lend themselves well to the consolidation of democracy.” That’s what I wrote in 2007, when I was a young student at the Harvard Kennedy School. Even then, it was clear that the forces threatening to undermine the new democratic Afghan state would likely prove too powerful for it to withstand. Despite my analysis, I returned home and attempted to help build the new government, first as senior economic adviser to President Ashraf Ghani, then as minister of industry and commerce, and, most recently, as central bank governor. In the end, 14 years after I wrote those words, the Taliban retook Afghanistan and democracy died overnight.
From my vantage point working for the government in Kabul until August 15, when I scrambled to board a C-17 to escape the country, I had a front-row seat to what went wrong. For years, the Afghan government was plagued by political infighting, corruption, and national security and law enforcement leaders who abused their positions of power or had little to no experience.Thus, when the United States brokered the Doha peace deal with the Taliban in February 2020, it dealt an already weak Afghan government a devastating blow. As the United States and the international community started heading for the exits, other regional players, especially Pakistan, took additional steps to further shift the balance of power to the Taliban. As these external drivers shaped the country’s future, Afghan political actors did not adjust accordingly. When the United States decided to fully withdraw its troops, these same leaders continued to compete for power rather than plan for the worst-case scenario.
