Who Does Afghanistan Belong to? It's an Unsolved Problem

 

Who Does Afghanistan Belong To? It’s an Unsolved Struggle

By Wahab Raofi

 

Forty-five years ago this Christmas Eve, Soviet tanks crossed into Afghanistan,

launching a decade-long occupation and a cataclysm that would shape the country for

generations. Since then, Afghanistan has been portrayed as a land condemned to

perpetual bloodshed — a so-called “graveyard of empires,” trapped in endless conflict.

 

This belief in the country’s intractability has hardened not only a war-weary population, but also the minds of global leaders.

 

After two decades of Western military and political engagement, the verdict echoed that of the Soviet Union when it spent time and treasure on a war deemed unsolvable. American presidents have been unusually candid in expressing this view, with one dismissing Afghanistan one of “Hellholes” Yet this fatalism — born of repeated intervention and failure — rests on a profound misdiagnosis.

 

Afghanistan’s conflict is not the product of fate, geography or some ancient cultural

curse. Nor is it simply the result of foreign invasion. The core problem is a modern

political failure: a relentless internal struggle for exclusive control over the state.

 

Since the Soviet withdrawal, Afghan elites have treated power as a zero-sum possession — something to be monopolized rather than shared — locking the country into

recurring cycles of collapse and violence.

 

At the center of this struggle lies a question the Afghan state has yet to resolve: Who

does Afghanistan belong to?

 

Historically, the word Afghan was synonymous with Pashtun. It functioned as an ethnic

designation long before it was repurposed as a national one. Although modern

constitutions have attempted to redefine “Afghan” as a civic identity encompassing all

citizens, this transformation has never been fully accepted.

 

Many non-Pashtun communities — Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks — continue to view the term not as neutral or inclusive, but as a symbol of Pashtun political dominance. This unresolved contradiction lies at the heart of the country’s crisis of legitimacy.

 

The Taliban’s return to power has brought this historical fault line into sharp relief. The movement, overwhelmingly Pashtun and rooted in the southern and eastern provinces,

has monopolized political authority while excluding any meaningful non-Pashtun

participation.

 

Pashto has been elevated above other languages, and a deliberate campaign of “Pashtunization” has taken shape across state institutions. Kandahar, the Taliban’s birthplace, now functions as the de facto capital, while Kabul — an historically multi-ethnic, Persian-speaking city — has been reduced to a subordinate administrative center.

 

This concentration of power is not merely political; it’s also civilizational. By ruling

symbolically and practically from the Pashtun heartland, the Taliban reinforces an older

vision of Afghanistan as a Pashtun state, rather than a shared homeland. For non-

Pashtuns, this confirms their long-standing fear that they are subjects of the state, not

co-owners of it.

 

Resistance, therefore, is framed not simply as opposition to a regime, but

as a defense of identity and dignity. Under such conditions, compromise feels like

cultural surrender, and peace without a fundamental redefinition of the nation becomes

impossible.

 

This cycle didn’t begin with the Taliban. After the Soviet withdrawal in the early 1990s,

minority groups — long marginalized under Pashtun-dominated monarchies and

republics — asserted themselves politically and militarily. The resulting civil war

deepened ethnic polarization.

 

Following 2001, the U.S.-backed government reversed the imbalance, empowering minority elites while sidelining many Pashtuns. This exclusion bred resentment, which the Taliban later mobilized under the banner of Islam, facilitating their return to power.

 

What persists is a destructive pattern: each faction seeks total control of the state, often

with foreign backing, rather than a negotiated political order. Today, many anti-Taliban

figures operate from exile, lobbying Western capitals for support while the

Taliban — drawing legitimacy from Pashtun grievance — rejects meaningful power-

sharing. The result is a familiar stalemate that no external actor can resolve.

 

This is why solutions crafted in Washington, Brussels or at the United Nations

repeatedly fail. They treat Afghanistan as a technical problem of counterterrorism or

governance, rather than as a political community struggling to define itself. No amount

of aid, sanctions or diplomatic pressure can substitute for an internal settlement that

answers the question of belonging.

 

Any durable peace must therefore emerge from within. It requires reimagining

Afghanistan not as the possession of a single ethnic group, language or historical

narrative, but as a genuinely shared political home. That means redefining “Afghan” as

a civic identity — one grounded in equal ownership of the state, rather than ethnic

hierarchy.

 

Until that reckoning occurs, Afghanistan will remain trapped in a tragic loop: every victor

will become tomorrow’s oppressor, and every excluded community will seek redress

through force. The conflict will persist not because peace is unattainable, but because

the Afghan state has never truly belonged to all its people.

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