Posted on September 06, 2025
Karachi:
On August 15, Afghan activists from around the world have marked four years since the Taliban resumed Kabul. In Washington, a virtual demonstration brought together human rights defenders, exiled activists and diaspora chiefs. Their message was urgent but dark: Afghanistan slipped into silence, not only under the repression of the Taliban, but in the corridors of the world power where its fate was relegated to the margins.
“Gender apartheid is one of the best strategic tools,” said Elika Eftikhari, executive director of the human rights group based in Washington, Jina Alliance to the virtual demonstration. She pointed out that the case to label Afghanistan a state of gender apartheid does not need to be constructed – “It already exists because the Taliban codified it in the law and the constitution, the legal system and the governor documents.”
This reality has defined Afghan life since 2021. Girls are prohibited in classrooms, women erased from public spaces and severe sanctions justified by a close interpretation of Islamic law. However, while the activists sang the virtual demonstration in several cities in the United States, “the Taliban are terrorists”, Washington has largely looked at elsewhere. The American information cycles that day was consumed by the coverage of the meeting of former president Trump with Russian president Vladimir Putin to discuss Ukraine. Four years after the fall of Kabul, America seems to have evolved.
The contrast could not have been clearer. Afghanistan, formerly a centerpiece of American foreign and military policy, has regularly faded with the American political imagination.
A leak priority
After the September 11 attacks, Afghanistan drew the individual attention of Washington for two decades. Billions of dollars have been spent and more than 2,400 American soldiers died there. However, four years after the Taliban’s return, Afghanistan is a footnote in the Congress debates, a subject of sporadic discussion in tanks of reflection and a rarity in the traditional American media.
“Nothing in Afghanistan aligns with the [current] The administration focuses on commercial diplomacy, “said Dr. Asfandyar Mir, the main member of South Asia in the Stimson Center.” Unlike the new Syrian regime, the Taliban dossier is poorer and the regime has no defender among the American allies. Therefore, the status quo will persist. The involvement is that Afghanistan will, at best, be the problem of the region and the United States will focus on its interests against close terrorism, “he told T-Magazine in a written answer to questions on the subject.
Mir added that “even under President Biden, the interest in Afghanistan was only rushed out for fear of collapsing on the administration’s watch, given the disastrous withdrawal in 2021 which damaged the Biden Administration.” The difference now, he said, is Stark: “The current administration works without the shadow of the withdrawal of Afghanistan. It is more vigilant on counter-terrorism and ready to act on a global scale, including in South Asia.”
In other words, Afghanistan only matters in that it could incubate terrorist threats. Human rights, governance and development, the very pillars that US officials have invoked to justify their mission, were actually abandoned.
Washington’s silence
A recent article by the Brookings Institution, “the second Trump administration will make its eyes on Afghanistan” (May 2025), has constantly concluded that Aghanistan has “actually disappeared from American political and media attention since the chaotic withdrawal of 2021”.
The author, Madiha Afzal, argued that retirement is not only rhetoric. “With deep cuts with humanitarian aid, a reduction in refugee protections and little appetite for the advocacy of human rights, millions of Afghans are faced with the worsening of hunger, instability and repression,” explains the analytical piece.
As Madiha Afzal notes, “human rights will no longer be at the center of American foreign policy”, a frightening admission given the extent of suffering for Afghan women and girls. Commitment only persists in fragments: cooperation against limited terrorism and silent inversion of premiums in certain Taliban figures.
For Afghan activists in exile, this selective commitment is both exasperating and devastating. While Russia and Iran are accused of having supported the Taliban, the American response is silent. During the gatherings in American cities, the demonstrators condemned the role of Moscow, but their requests barely recorded in the political circles of Washington.
The virtual demonstration, entitled Global Anti-Taliban Demonstration, has published a resolution shared with T-Magazine urging the American government and the international community to designate Russia as a “terrorist sponsor”, recognize the Taliban system as “gender aparthed”, bring Taliban leaders to justice, protect Afghan refugees, Taliban in the Afghan crisis.
Sadiq AINI, an Afghan human rights activist and organizer of the demonstration, told T-Magazine in a written response according to which they welcome the disengagement of the Trump administration with the Taliban. “We are very happy with the disengagement of the Trump administration with the Taliban terrorists in charge of Afghanistan. The inhabitants of Afghanistan appreciate it. This change of policy will help the inhabitants of Afghanistan to get rid of Taliban terrorists thanks to the uprising of people. ”
Competing priorities: Iran in the center
If Afghanistan fell from the Washington radar, Iran has moved to the center of its terrorism control card. During an event at the Hudson Institute on August 19, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the president and principal director of the fight against terrorism to the National Security Council, sketched the Trump administration strategy.
“Iran is at the center of everything we do in the region because they remain the largest state sponsor of terrorism,” said Gorka. “I say to my colleagues since January 20 that you have to understand something, when the president looks at the region, he does not cut it into accident cylinders … This metric, this prism is Iran.”
By describing the first achievements, Gorka boasted: “We released 72 American citizens in less than seven months, the Biden administration has made 80 in four years, we have killed 272 jihadists since January, excluding Houthis.”
While hooking threats from the Middle East to Africa, Afghanistan barely deserved the mention. Groups like IS-K, which led deadly attacks in Kabul and beyond, were overshadowed by Washington’s singular obsession for Tehran.
A fractured story
Silence in Washington around Afghanistan reflects more than changing priorities. Experts say he reveals how Washington deals with the heritage of chess. The withdrawal in August 2021, labeled as chaotic, deadly and humiliating in public debates, marked American policy. Democrats and Republicans prefer to look away, avoiding a reminder of the longest American war and the collapse that followed.
This avoidance has consequences. By treating Afghanistan as a closed chapter, Washington obscures the current realities: the Taliban rule normally has gender apartheid, the humanitarian crisis has deepened help reductions and terrorist groups continue to exploit instability.
Activists who gathered on August 15 try to give attention. For them, the issues are existential. The education of women, civic freedom and the fragile pluralism of Afghanistan disappear before the eyes of the world. However, their songs resonate in a void, drowned by geopolitical rivalries elsewhere.
What comes next?
Some analysts warn that Washington’s negligence could turn against him. The scope of IS-K has already extended to Pakistan and Central Asia, while the Taliban intestine struggles destabilize the region. Meanwhile, Russia, China and Iran discreetly broaden the influence in Kabul, filling the void left by Western Reterat.
However, for the moment, it is unlikely that the United States will re-enter the targeted strikes or intelligence sharing. Humanitarian aid has tightened and refugee programs are faced with a tightening of restrictions. The change is clear: Afghanistan is no longer the priority of America, but it could well remain its unfinished affairs.
As Afzal in Brookings warns, ignoring Afghanistan does not make its crises disappear. The country again becomes a test field, not for the American construction of democracy, but for the limits of the duration of Washington attention.
Afghan activists say that Afghanistan’s tragedy is twofold. At home, the Taliban institutionalized the repression to the point that gender apartheid is woven. Abroad, the nation was abandoned by the very power which claimed to release it.
“Gender apartheid”, as Eftikhari said, “is one of the best strategic tools” in the Taliban rule. And yet, for the global community, it is not even a strategic concern. For women and girls who have lost their future, for militants reduced to silence or exile, and for ordinary Afghans taken between poverty and repression, the silence of Washington can resemble betrayal.
Nilofar Mughal is a journalist based in Washington, formerly affiliated with The Voice of America
All the facts and information are the sole responsibility of the author
