What was the point of the war in Afghanistan?

On 7 October 2001 President George W. Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom – the invasion of Afghanistan. The operation sought to bring the architects of 9/11 to justice and reduce the threat of terrorism.

Twenty years later, President Joe Biden has pledged to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by 31 August, bringing to a close the United States’s longest-ever conflict – known colloquially as ‘the forever war’.

But Biden, who supported the invasion, is pulling out at a time when the Taliban – the highly-conservative Islamic organisation that was harbouring al-Qaeda in 2001 – is sweeping through half the country, killing civilians and human-rights defenders and besieging three cities. The US withdrawal, at a time of grave uncertainty, reinforces the futility of its involvement in the first place.

Violence in Afghanistan was already increasing in May, when this final phase of the American withdrawal began. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned of ‘huge consequences’ if the US army departed, and one of her predecessors, Condoleezza Rice, predicted that America would be forced to return to the country.