On March 17, 2025, Paolo von Schirach, president of the Global Policy Institute (GPI) and professor of political science and international relations at Bay Atlantic University, hosted Hakimi, currently a GPI fellow, to discuss lessons learned from Afghanistan’s years of war, 20-year US occupation and eventual peace talks with the Taliban
Global Policy Institute Reflects on Lessons Learned from Afghanistan
By Elaine Pasquini
Photo by Phil Pasquini
Washington: Up until the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, Haroon Hakimi served as his country’s Deputy Minister of Information, Culture, Youth and Tourism. On March 17, 2025, Paolo von Schirach, president of the Global Policy Institute (GPI) and professor of political science and international relations at Bay Atlantic University, hosted Hakimi, currently a GPI fellow, to discuss lessons learned from Afghanistan’s years of war, 20-year US occupation and eventual peace talks with the Taliban. Hakimi’s thoughts and comments were placed in context with Russia’s war on Ukraine and upcoming ceasefire discussions to end the three-year conflict.
On October 7, 2001, following the 9/11 attacks on New York’s World Trade Center, the United States invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban regime could not contend with the US-led fire power and within 40 days they had left the country, Hakimi related.
As a ten-year-old at the time of the US invasion, he remembered how scared the Taliban were of the US aircraft. “I still remember the sound of the bombing and how soon they left,” Hakimi said. “The Taliban could not resist and could not do any harm.” That was the first time, he said, Afghanistan missed an opportunity to discuss a power-sharing government.
At that time, Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader and founder (whose son is now the minister of defense), was looking to engage with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, but it never happened. If Mullah Omar as the respected leader of the Taliban had been allowed to stay in Afghanistan none of his commanders would go against his will and start a war, Hakimi said. “I think he could have been managed to not do any harm to the country.” And, while he was a charismatic person, he had no modern education; his only education was at local madrasas.
Not engaging with Mullah Omar at that time was a mistake, Hakimi said, and it only forced the Taliban into neighboring Pakistan, a country with which Afghans share Pashtun ethnicity and the Pashto language. Taliban fighters eventually regrouped and returned to fight Afghan troops and the US-led occupation forces.
The first lesson the Afghan government learned was that “talking was always the best option,” Hakimi stated. “So, we should have had conversations with them.”
One problem, however, was corruption, not only within the Afghan government, but within the foreign aid programs, the contracts given by the NATO members, by the EU members, and all of the sponsoring nations. “Corruption was everywhere,” he said.
Warlords were also a problem and posed a “serious threat to the legitimate government in Kabul, to the rule of law and the implementation of the policies, strategies and plans for the reconstruction of the country,” he added.
Then, deciding in 2018 to withdraw US troops, President Trump tasked Zalmay Khalilzad with starting peace talks with the Taliban, who by this time had increased their holdings of Afghan territory. Khalilzad, a naturalized American citizen born in Mazar-i-Sharif, served as the former US ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations. The talks were held in Doha, Qatar, where the Taliban had an office.
One long-held miscalculation by the Afghan government was that the US would not leave, Hakimi related. “But everything comes to an end” and the government learned the lesson that peace talks should happen as soon as possible.
So, the Afghans relied on the EU “who kind of indicated they would support the Afghan government,” he continued, but at that time the EU leadership did not step up to support them. The perception was “if the US is not with us, then the EU is with us. That was not realistic.”
Reflecting on mistakes the Afghan government made, Hakimi said that any kind of power-sharing deal would have been better than the current situation, with the Taliban banning women from work, education, and with the economy in shambles. Today, “the country has literally turned into a prison.”
Hakimi described the miserable current situation of hunger and poverty, noting the Taliban have taken all of the jobs “so there is no work available for educated people…modern education has no place in their policies, and they only believe in religious education. Almost everyone who worked for the previous government are considered non-Muslims to them.”
Discussing how Ukraine could learn from Afghanistan’s mistakes over the years, Hakimi noted that expediency is of upmost importance and that “peace talks should happen the sooner the better.”
Referring to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s February 28 contentious meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office, he said that the Ukranian leader was perceived as disrespectful which alienated some of the American officials. This was unfortunate because, in his opinion, while having support from Europe is good, “no other country can replace the leadership of the United States.”
Answering an audience member’s question on future opportunities for girls and women in Afghanistan, Hakimi explained that acting interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani (until recently an FBI-designated foreign terrorist) has now become a supporter of women’s rights. His stance, however, goes against the position of Taliban leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada who opposes education for women.
“With respect to the future, I do not think a government can last this way,” Hakimi said in conclusion. “They do not know how to run the country. There was hope that we would have a resistance to the Taliban, but I don’t have any hope in that.”
Hakimi is optimistic, however, that a new generation will take over and that Afghans and eventually the international community will realize there may be a change in the country.
(Elaine Pasquini is a freelance journalist. Her reports appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Nuze.Ink.)
