One of the questions which were frequently raised amongst Afghan people is why the war has no winner in this country? Why the peace efforts after many years of struggles are not leading to a settlement? Although the Taliban with their radical ideology has no social root in Afghanistan, why day-to-day the scope of their domination are expanding throughout the country? How a small terrorist group which was defeated within a month in 2021 has finally paralyzed a legitimate government and a world superpower? And why the world superpower with widespread supports of nearly forty countries has finally failed to win the war. In many cases, the officials of international community have confessed that the issue of Afghanistan has no warring solution. Given to this conclusion, the former US president tried to solves the issue through giving unilateral advantages to the extremist groups. Although providing clear response to all these concerns and questions are not this easy, we need to raise such critical questions so as to pave the ground for deeper understanding of peace and war in the country.
There is almost a wide consensus believing that three factors are behind the war and war failure in Afghanistan: internal factors, regional factors and international factors. Out of long list of internal factors, corruption and emotional behavior with Terrorists are the most important ones. Although the terrorist groups have been killing thousands of men, women, children, civilians and armed citizens of the country, the people of Afghanistan have not seen any terrorists to be executed by the justice system of the country.  The prisons of Afghanistan are considered as safe haven for the terrorist groups. In some cases, the government has been friendlier with terrorist groups than certain ethnic groups. In recent days, the government instead of protecting defenseless people of central area which frequently victimized by terrorists, it repressed a peaceful civilian protest in Behsood leaving dozens of killing and injuries yet. These types of emotional orientation of the security forces have not only created huge distance between the government and people, but also encouraged terrorists to bravely launch terrorist attacks in the country. Having no fear of punishment, they confidently keep committing crimes against humanity destroying public and private properties.
According to political scholars, it is not always possible to reach peace and security through friendly ways against war and war factors. The philosophy of legitimate war is to reach peace and prosperity. In this regard, Friedrich Nietzsche believes if we do not use violence, we lose the war. In such cases, he says there are not more than two choices either to kill or be killed. Based on this, if we had executed only a dozen of terrorists, we would not witness the causalities or replacement of millions in the country. Based on Islamic teachings, Muslims should keep away from war but should never accept oppression. While it prohibits its followers from killing of innocent human with promising hard punishment, it also necessitates war as obligation for Muslim as preventive means against aggressions. While it strictly prohibits its believers from oppression but it persists in not escaping from the battlefield of a legitimate war considering it as a big sin. Therefore, if the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan had strictly followed the moderate guidelines, today, we would not be the observer of repeated crimes in the country.
As a second internal factor of not winning war, there have been multiple reports in last two decades showing that corruption have challenged everything including victory in the battlefield against terrorists. Based on survey carried out few years ago by International Transparency, one of four Afghan citizens believes that the country’s army is corrupt. According to Transparency International, 51% of Afghans have bribed police at least once while its latest report ranked Afghanistan 165th out of 180 countries with upsurge of several stages than previous times. In May 2015, Newsweek reported that some 460,000 weapons provided by the Pentagon to Afghan security forces had disappeared and been sold to the Taliban.  According to a previous UN surveys, 70 percent of violent crimes in Afghanistan are committed in areas controlled by the central government. Therefore, all these reports confirm a serious link between infiltration of enemies and corruption in the country, especially security channels.
As a regional factor of not winning war, everyone knows that Pakistan plus another neighboring countries support Taliban with providing them shelter, technical and fiscal assistance. Few weeks ago, a video was released in the media showing that the Taliban leader Mullah Brother spoke amongst a large number of Taliban in Pakistan’s soil. Everyone believes that Pakistani seminaries act as breeding ground for terrorism and fundamentalist ideas, which greatly aids the recruitment and recruitment of Taliban forces. The people of both countries expect both Kabul and Islamabad to pursue their interests through legitimate ways. The war not only wastes the fiscal and human capital of both countries but also decays the power of both countries.
As international factor of not winning war, the international forces come to Afghanistan on basis of certain agreement and commitment but not acted upon. As long as they seriously supported the Afghan security forces, the terrorists were also weak and people of Afghanistan were also in the favor of international community, but with passive approach of international community in recent years, the Afghan people also disappointed from international community. Unfortunately, the international community expressed unfriendly views saying they were not international police or not here for state building while these points were on contrary to the mutual agreement and spirit of strategic friendship. Now, the people of Afghanistan do not consider them as a rescuing partner but as part of political issue. If we want win the war in the country, we need to strengthen our relationship with Afghan government an people based honesty and mutual interests.