WHAT NEXT FOR AFGHANISTAN?

After years of minuscule media coverage, including a reported total of five minutes across the three major American television networks for the entirety of 2020, Afghanistan surged into the global limelight in late summer 2021. The evaporation of the US-sponsored Afghan government, enacted by the precipitous flight of Ashraf Ghani from Kabul's monstrously fortified Green Zone, took most observers by surprise on Aug 15, 2021. US media punditry joined US officialdom in the universal chorus of derision toward Ghani as he settled into his new life as a political outcast in the United Arab Emirates. American officials were less condemnatory toward their declared medieval adversaries and reincarnated rulers of Afghanistan, the Taliban, with whom they coordinated to evacuate suddenly entrapped American citizens and some, but certainly not all, of their local allies. The February 2020 Doha peace agreement between the US and the Taliban, which significantly did not include Ghani's administration, accounted for the aforementioned 300 seconds of US network news.