NOW that Barack Obama has left the White House after eight years of flip-flop on the longest war in America’s history, Afghanistan continues to be in turmoil. Despite paying a colossal cost in treasure and blood over the past decade and a half, the US has been unable to stabilise the country.

Although he has not yet outlined his policy, President Donald Trump has inherited a sorry legacy from his predecessor, who had held out high-sounding promises of ending the so-called good war. Alas, Obama honoured in the breach his oft-hashed commitments to wrapping up the military mission.

Much before the flabbergasting outcome of the presidential election, Washington had spent more than $850 billion on the Afghanistan war in addition to losing 2,400 service members. However, the Obama administration’s plans were not up to snuff. As things stand, one can safely predict the conflict will be a hard-to-clear muddle for the new commander-in-chief.

The Afghan war will be a challenge for Trump.

Obama’s intentions might have been good, but his policy was surrounded by perplexity all along the line — a drawdown of troops, jacking up deployment, arming the military with greater powers to hunt terrorists, ending the combat mission and then an abrupt return to the shifting battlefront.

Granted, Al Qaeda suffered spectacular setbacks, notably the death of Osama bin Laden and other dreaded rebel commanders, during the Obama presidency. But the terrorist outfit is once again regrouping in Afghanistan’s shambolic east and not-so-restive north.

Undeterred by bombing campaigns and ground offensives, the militant Islamic State group has progressively expanded its foothold from a few districts in Nangarhar to Kabul and beyond. Worse still, the Taliban are increasingly challenging a beleaguered Afghan government.

More than half of US reconstruction aid since 2002 has gone into building, equipping and training Afghan forces, but they are far from capable of securing the country. As of August 2016, only 63.4pc of the country’s territory was under government control, shrinking from 72pc in November 2015.

On the face of it, large investment has not yielded results. Afghan forces could not instil any sense of security in residents of the countryside, where local disputes are still decided by Afghan Taliban courts. Under their verdicts, men and women are executed in full public glare on the flimsiest of charges.

Insurgent outfits retain the capability of launching high-casualty attacks even in major urban centres. The Jan 10 bombings near parliament in Kabul and bang in the middle of the governor’s office in Kandahar city bloodily highlighted the weak spot of a clueless security establishment that always looks for scapegoats to conceal its failures.

The fatalities, numbering close to 100, included five diplomats from the UAE, the deputy governor, security officials and innocent civilians. The Kandahar governor and UAE ambassador were among several people wounded in the brazen assault. The Taliban have denied complicity in the deadly explosions, saying no one would bite the hand that feeds them.

By the end of his second term, Obama had promised the US would have only an embassy-level military presence in Afghanistan. But more than 8,000 US soldiers remain. Similarly, his vow to work for a broad political settlement has also turned out to be a lie.

Obama could not deliver what was expected of him. Disappointingly, he did not prove different from his jingoistic predecessor George W. Bush. On Obama’s watch, dangerous nostrums like regime change and Arab Spring were brashly pursued by State Department and Pentagon hawks.

Trump will now have to deal with grim security challenges in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. What he will do to stop the bloodletting in Afghanistan is a mystery at this stage. However, he must know that the war is not winnable through military means alone.

Well into its 16th year, the US presence in Afghanistan has been raising eyebrows in Iran, Russia, China and Pakistan. The regional powers, some already having gone ballistic over America’s indefinite stay in their backyard, have made no secret of their desire to have their say in any future settlement.

The new administration is likely to take a hard look at the situation. Acutely mindful of the destabilising effects of regional proxy wars, the Trump team will not cut and run. Instead, it would let a flexible number of troops stay in Afghanistan to keep an eye on China, Iran and Pakistan.

Eradication of endemic corruption and drugs, sustainability of the gains made over the past 15 years, transparency in mega contracts, improved revenue collection, infrastructure development and maintaining a sensitive geopolitical balance in the region will be some of the main challenges for the new president.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Peshawar.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2017