The Afghanistan war started after a communist coup as small scale insurgency due to reaction to communist repressions (Qazi, 2010). It turned to full scale war only after Soviet invasion. The Soviet Union was paranoid about their puppet regime in Kabul and they believed that Afghan president is secretly making deals with CIA and rebels. In this regard, they invaded Afghanistan, killed their puppet president and established a new president (Ibrahim, 2018). This caused larger insurgency, and later the Soviets withdraw and communist regime was overthrown. Moreover, the Warlord begun to fight each other and in 1993 the Taliban came to Afghanistan. Taliban pushed other Afghan groups and by 2001 it controlled most of the country leading to WTC.
Furthermore, the USA also attacked Afghanistan in 2001 because the Taliban was believed to have sympathized with Osama Bin Laden and protected him. An attempt by the USA forces to attack the Afghanistan, wipe out the Taliban and install a Western-friendly regime failed (Adam Grissom, 2010). Consequently, after the collapse of USSR in 1991 and a subsequent independence of oil and gas rich Central Asian republics, there was great scramble for the oil and gas resources, estimated to be more than 200 billion barrels of oil, in the Afghanistan region (Adam Grissom, 2010). Also, in 1995 one American company, Unocal, in partnership with an Argentinian and a Saudi oil company, signed agreements with Turkmenistan to build gas and oil pipelines which was further extended in the region.
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On the invitation of Unocal, a delegation of Taliban, ruling Afghanistan at that time, visited their corporate headquarters in California and signed an agreement in January, 1998 to allow the pipeline to pass through their country. However, in March, 1998 Unocal announced a delay in the pipeline project, stating an on-going civil war in Afghanistan as their reason for this delay. Feeling frustrated by this betrayal, Taliban entered into agreement on April 30, 1999 with Pakistan and Turkmenistan for the pipeline. This led the U.S. government to retaliate, placing sanctions on Afghanistan. The Afghanistan was given an ultimatum by the U.S. Government saying, " Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs ” (Samples, 2011). The American government forced the Taliban’s Oil Interests Refusal to toe the American line, but this led to the cassus belli for the attack on 7th October 2001.
After 9/11 The US wanted to bring the perpetrators to their maker more than anything in the world. This meant that the sights of the entire U.S. military shifted focus to Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terror group (Samples, 2011). The western nations went into Afghanistan almost exclusively to destroy the Al Qaeda, and more importantly to catch and kill Osama Bin Laden. On the other hand, U.S. was also aware that Osama had been working in close contact with the Taliban, and was likely somewhere on their home turf. Afghanistan seemed like the most likely spot for him to be hiding.
The US launched a Special Forces operation to overthrow the Afghan government which was ruled by the Taliban. After the incredible success in this operation, the full invasion ensued (Sidky, 2007). The Tora Bora battle presented the most significant moment to kill Bin Laden because he was believed to be hiding in a series of caves about 20km from the Pakistani border. A collection of US Special Forces operators were sent to clear these caves in the search for Bin Laden, but their movements were slowed dramatically by the abundance of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in the area. While it is extremely likely that Bin Laden was present in the caves at Tora Bora, it is also extremely likely that it was during this battle that he escaped to Pakistan (Ibrahim, 2018). The rest of the invasion was spent trying to create a stable and democratic government in the area, while collecting intelligence on any terrorist organizations that may be operating.
In 1994 , the Taliban rose to quite an extent and enforced a new version of Islamic Law, introduced brutal punishments, banned television, prohibited girls from getting the education and also forced women to wear burkha (Ibrahim, 2018). Some members of al-Qaeda including Osama Bin Laden was given shelter by the Taliban and that is when the tension between the US and Taliban grew and the US invaded Afghanistan. Indeed there are multiple reasons why the war has still lasted, but the Taliban still remains a huge power in Afghanistan as it controls most of the country and the group makes as much as $1.5 Billion per year production of heroin, oil and natural gas.
Realism Theory
The realism theory suggests that politics is often comprised of conflicting individuals whose main aim is to capture power (Samples, 2011). This theory can best explain the Afghanistan War since it had many causes, but the most critical cause was the system of alliances and defensive pacts between the Afghan government and Al-Qaeda that turned the region conflict into a full blown war. From a realist perspective the systems of alliances between the Afghan government and Al-Qaeda are all a result of trying to increase national power (Samples, 2011). The U.S. government also came in to capture power and control the region’s resources such as oil and natural gas (Samples, 2011). These conflicting powers could just find new land and stick a colony there, by Afghanistan War every spec of land had been claimed and the only way to gain more power in the region was to take someone else's, or invade Afghanistan.
Finally, realism in international relations acts as an opposition of any kind to idealism. Idealistic international intentions may seek to reformat the world in accordance with the idea underlying this policy. For example, the communists wanted communism to take place all over the world while the liberals want liberal democracy to come. In this regard, realism proceeds from the obvious interests of the country, and even insists that there is nothing but obvious interests. The realism, now, after the collapse of the ideological view of the world that the USSR and the USA suffered, seems to be a good alternative, but the world must understand that this is rather a temporary retreat, and then some models of building international politics will return.
References
Grissom, A. (2010). Making it up as we go along: State-building, critical theory and military adaptation in Afghanistan. Conflict, Security and Development . 10(4); 493-517
Ibrahim, S, Y. (2018). Theory of the rise of Al-Qaeda. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression , 10 (2); 138–157.
Samples M E. (2011). Applying Realism Theory in Afghanistan . Master’s Thesis, National Defense University Joint Forces Staff College
Sidky H. (2007). War, Changing Patterns of Warfare, State Collapse, and Transnational violence in Afghanistan. Modern Asian Studies, 41 (4); 849–888.
Qazi S. (2010). The ‘Neo-Taliban’ and Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. Third World Quarterly, 31 (3); 485–499.
