It’s been more than two decades since I made my first trip to Afghanistan: Back in May 1997, I went to the northern shrine city of Mazar-i-Sharif, but was forced to flee back to Uzbekistan as the Taliban broke a truce and suddenly attacked the city. Three years later, I returned, and saw a very different Afghanistan: The Taliban had conquered 90 percent of the country, and I was their guest. At the time, the Clinton administration was deep in dialogue with the group, and Laili Helms, the wife of former CIA Director Richard Helms’ nephew, was lobbying for their recognition. I traveled overland through the Khyber Pass to Jalalabad, Kabul, Ghazni, and Qandahar, interviewing men and women who had, at that time, lived under Taliban rule for between three and six years. In general, Afghans explained they welcomed the Taliban because they craved law-and-order and stability after years of suffering under squabbling mujahedeen factions. However, they complained, the Taliban had become just as vicious and
exploitative as the groups they had replaced. The Taliban, I concluded, were a house of cards for they had lost any claim to the hearts and minds of the people.

The Taliban’s governance failure, their corruption, and their wanton cruelty were reasons why, after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, their Islamic Emirate collapsed so quickly. At the December 2001 Bonn Conference, Afghan leaders (encouraged by the United States, Iran, and other outside powers) chose Hamid Karzai to be interim leader; he would subsequently win elections in 2004 and continue to rule for another decade.