SIGAR’s Unheeded Warnings
tremely limited Most residents rely on agriculture and livestock for survival livelihoods that are under threat due to climate change water scarcity and the absence of modern farming facilities With no major industries and limited access to higher education institutions, unemployment among young people remains high Many are forced to migrate in search of work, while others risk exposure to extremist influences due to prolonged economic frustration One of the main challenges in
Marginalized communities suffer the most in such conditions Violence against vulnerable groups, including transgender persons, highlights serious shortcomings in law enforcement, social protection and societal a ttitudes When people feel that justice is out of reach, trust in state institutions gradually disappears
Hrecord Afghanistan not as a failure discovered too late but as a failure meticulously documented and consciously ignored The real scandal is not what went wrong, but how persistently power chose to look away For nearly two decades, SIGAR issued warnings with clockwork regularity detailing corruption waste strategic incoherence and institutional decay Those reports were not buried in secrecy; they were tabled before lawmakers defence planners and policymakers in full view Yet, the intervention continued on autopilot, as if repetition could dilute responsibility The reconstruction of Afghanistan ostensibly designed to promote social development and eradicate terrorism instead engineered a parallel economy of corruption and dependency Of the nearly $148 billion spent, billions were siphoned off through fraudulent contracts, ghost projects and inflated security assistance SIGAR’s own estimates of $26–30 billion lost to waste and abuse likely understate the true cost Development became transactional security was outsourced and governance was reduced to a performance staged for donor satisfaction rather than public legitimacy
This systemic failure directly shaped the security vacuum that followed Afghanistan today remains host to a constellation of militant groups with ISIS-K Al-Qaeda remnants and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) operating with varying degrees of freedom For Pakistan, the consequences have been immediate and devastating Cross-border attacks
have surged militants operate with enhanced lethality and the strategic depth once promised has mutated into strategic exposure This resurgence is inseparable from the catastrophic decision to abandon hundreds of thousands of advanced weapons, armoured vehicles and night-vision systems now circulating within militant networks
Equally damning is the collapse of the counter-narcotics narrative After spending over $7 billion on drug eradication programmes, Afghanistan remains a central node in regional narcotics trafficking Opium, methamphetamine and smuggling networks continue to generate illicit revenues that sustain criminal syndicates and extremist groups
The hypocrisy is difficult to ignore Where Washington cites drug trafficking as justification for coercive pressure and sanctions against states like Venezuela, Afghanistan s narco-economy is treated as an unfortunate by-product rather than a policy failure demanding accountability
Human rights too have been reduced to selective outrage Under Taliban rule Afghanistan has descended into one of the most severe cases of institutionalised repression in the world Women have been erased from public life; more than 1 4 million girls remain barred from secondary education employment restrictions are systemic and dissent is criminalised Arbitrary detentions collective punishments and intimidation of journalists and minorities are widely documented Yet global responses oscillate between ritual condemnation and cautious engagement, exposing the limits of moral consistency in international diplomacy
This erosion of norms is occurring alongside shifting geopolitical alignments India s expanding influence in Afghanistan, under the banner of development and humanitarian engagement, carries unmistakable strategic undertones In an environment already destabilised by militant sanctuaries hostile to Pakistan such involvement deepens regional mistrust rather than fostering stability Afghanistan once again risks becoming a chessboard for proxy manoeuvring rather than a platform for cooperative security At the same time, Russia and China have adopted a pragmatic interest-driven posture Moscow s removal of the Taliban from its terrorist blacklist and Beijing s engagement driven by security concerns and economic cor-
ridors reflect a broader recalibration: legitimacy is no longer tied to governance or human rights but to utility Stability however defined has taken precedence over accountability This convergence of transactional diplomacy underscores a stark reality global powers are no longer even pretending to uphold a common rulebook The United Nations meant to arbitrate such contradictions stands diminished From Gaza to Ukraine from Afghanistan to Latin America enforcement has yielded to vetoes and geopolitical bargaining The so-called rules-based international order now functions selectively, activated when convenient and suspended when inconvenient In this environment might does not merely override right it defines it
For Pakistan this global abdication is not theoretical It manifests in renewed terrorism strained borders, economic disruption and a persistent sense of strategic isolation Islamabad is repeatedly urged to demonstrate restraint and responsibility even as the sources of instability across its western frontier remain unaddressed and in some cases tacitly accommodated by global and regional powers alike
The SIGAR reports, taken together, are not just audits of an intervention gone wrong; they are indictments of a system that mistakes documentation for accountability Warnings were issued data was compiled lessons were articulated yet political will was conspicuously absent When collapse finally arrived, responsibility was diffused, consequences externalised and the region left to absorb the shockwaves Afghanistan’s tragedy thus transcends its borders It exposes a world where principles are invoked selectively failures are managed rhetorically and the costs of strategic arrogance are exported to those with the least influence over decision-making Until accountability applies equally whether in Kabul Caracas or beyond the Afghan failure
Majid Nabi burfat
THE war on Iran is very much
have commenced with full force; or there might be the initial attrition rituals taking place between the warring parties Anyhow, the current scenario brings to mind an undated interview currently being posted on social media The interview conducted by the western correspondent of the deposed Shah of Iran revolves around the power of what the Shah calls the Jewish lobby in the USA On being pressed, the late Shah lists out capital, banks and media to be the part of the lobby’s empire, abruptly stopping in the interview by saying “that I will stop here”; apparently saving his own skin in the process However he underscored the power of the media on opinion-making in a democracy or society like
the USA of the mid-1970s Given the growing realization of that fact it might not have been a bolt from blue for the then Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto or the Indian strongwoman Indira Gandhi to see through the curtains of protocol around them to look into what was transpiring behind the scenes They were dislodged successively in 1977; but those deceased personalities must have realized how demons were made out of their persona; for first making a specific perception about them in the target audience and then implementing what was needed by the Pentagon, US administration or the West Take a tour straight to Iran or for that matter Tehran as to what are the ground realities A political movement transformed into the government seldom leaves its street fighter mindset and keeps that mindset as a reserve to be used as and when required Monday, January 12, the regime or its supporters mobilized several decently attended rallies in support of the Nezam The Tehran rally was attended by the President and the Speaker of the Republic Parliament with apparently not much of the protocol seen in the case of VIPs in Pakistan In a society where the public is supposedly frantically waiting for the sight of the USAF and IDF bombers to dislodge the Nezam the main pillars of that Nezam were roaming freely on Tehran Vali Asr street If shown on the world media this could have prompted the viewers the world over; to question the dominant narrative at this point of time Such disgruntled public as made to believe in the first place is at advantage in such counter-demonstration
It remains to be seen how the events unfold, not just in the form of precision strikes; but the level of reaction by Iranians and above all how the world awakes to the aftermath; an obituary for the time being or an attrition of sorts where a war can drag on to weeks. Unlike Venezuela, where it was a precision operation, the Iranian nut might still be hard to crack The events unfolding as these lines go into print will largely determine which side the region is headed to, in the first place
instances to lynch such regime figures without any hassle if they want to However what is observed is a complete blackout of the counter narrative Rather one comes across the videos on the pattern of ‘White Helmet’ media cell productions, the NGO active during the Syrian Civil war and which was instrumental in precipitation of Tomahawk strikes in that country in 2013 Here in the case of Iran one observes that evidence videos are being shot for the duration of 6 to 10 minutes without any interruption by the morgue staff in Kahrizk morgue, near Tehran; which is a bit difficult to comprehend in a society which is projected as a police state and liable to dislodged at the first opportunity
Consequently what the world is waiting for is the arrival of US help to the besieged people of that republic The scene portrayed by the CNN or BBC, TRT or RT is equivalent to an invitation where any delay can embolden the targeted entity In other words the global media seems to be hyperactive on the count that it has even prepared what can be called a one-sided obituary of the Nezam in the case of Iran The demonization of the republic which is not ready for unconditional submission to the unipolar world and wants to chart out its own path on its own terms suits the dominant media on one count that; questioning their domination can cause a domino impact on the other enslaved entities or cultures
Here it is important to note that the world has always been a place of one or two dominant civilizations and there have been instances where a new narrative has pushed back the old ones singularly based on effective questioning of the status quo and the rewards the societies get in adopting the new narrative
The evolution of the Marxist state in Russia, the transformation of the Chinese society into a value-added society are because of the challenges the unipolar capitalist world had in the form of counter narratives That narrative comes down to personal choices and the technology choices; like why an iPhone can be a better digital photography gear than a Chinese Android; it is the cultural domination which comes with the unipolar world and the consequent narrative
To elaborate further the two wars during the summer of 2025 also laid bare amongst the developed nations whose weapon sys-
tems were practical The French-built Rafales of the IAF were routed in the wee hours of May 7 by a completely Chinese strike package of the PAF; on the face of the facts did not only prove the better skills of the Pakistani pilots; it also laid a question mark on the machine manufacturing by the renowned French aviation name, Dassault Breguet It was no coincidence that the shares of J-10C Manufacturer Chengdu showed improvement in the global stock markets Likewise after the initial decapitation of the IRGC leadership, the missile strikes by the IRGC Aerospace and the devastation on ground by these warheads, their striking velocity as well as their ability to evade the Iron Dome were all illustrative of the fact that new narratives do not stand on mere slogans; but can help form infrastructures which can add value and innovate over the available global technology; for example the North Korean warhead motors and turbines for that matter
The current hyperactivity again is centred around; how a counter narrative is first isolated in the media the demon created out of its existence the public made to believe on that as well as finally
HOW does one write in this moment when overtaken by grief? In Iran, mass civil resistance to authoritarianism since late December 2025 has been met with large-scale state murder As I write these words over 2600 people (with estimates claiming the figure is closer to 3500 or higher) have been killed by state security forces At least 18 000 have been arrested Harrowing images of morgues and warehouses overflowing with corpses in body bags demand that people of conscience globally bear witness
People in Iran are no strangers to mass civil resistance This is the fourth nationwide uprising in just eight years But what explains the takeover of streets time and again by masses who face the tremendous risk of being shot dead, blinded, or maimed, of being imprisoned and surveilled by a judicial system known for its use of execution as a tool to quell dissent? The answer can only be that people are unable to continually ignore their desire to be free from an oppressive state one which has lost all legitimacy among broad swathes of society
Nevertheless, we must not romanticise this event People continually expressing their desire to be free does not necessarily translate into winning that freedom which makes it extraordinarily painful Still making visible en masse people s refusal of the state wholesale and within that, individuals’ refusal to be silenced, to accept power on its own terms will form an indelible entry in the historical record In other words when future generations of Iranians who are no longer living under the Islamic Republic look back they will remember these years of struggle as profoundly meaningful At the same time, it is important to remember that everyday acts of resistance do wrest fragments of power in the present One example of this is how countless women in many parts of the country no longer abide by the legally mandated religious dress code (hijab), a direct result of their bloody battles
during the Woman Life Freedom uprising of 2022 sparked by Mahsa Jina Amini’s arrest and subsequent death in custody BUILDING A DEMOCRATIC FUTURE
What has been glaringly absent from current Western media coverage of these protests, however, is the coalescing of a progressive pole of mobilisation among a notable segment of movement builders who for many years have put forward a radically democratic program for Iran s future and whose legitimacy in the eyes of their immediate communities must not be ignored or understated This segment consists of feminist collectives student groups labour unions and guilds retirees teachers writers fighting censorship protest coordination councils among national minorities like the Kurds and Baluch, and political prisoners At the same time, this progressive pole what some describe as civil society has made clear its opposition to the co-optation of Iran’s democratic struggle by foreign powers This mainly includes the United States and Israel and their would-be surrogate Reza Pahlavi the exiled son of the former deposed shah and dictator of Iran who is claiming leadership of the movement and urging said powers to intervene on his behalf
US President Donald Trump has both threatened to intervene militarily while also claiming that Iran s government is ready to negotiate with him It is clear that the US public has little appetite for what would certainly be a protracted war At this time, when it is becoming clear that Trump shifts his rhetoric based on US political and business interests rather than those of the people in Iran it is especially important to instead tend to the work and perspectives of civil resistance leaders WHY THERE’S FURY While the first protests began among merchants angered by a sharp fall in the value of currency due to the impact of US sanctions they quickly evolved into a broader anti-government uprising expressing rage at the state and Iran s domestic economic elite over decades of accumulated economic injustices and brutal repression along gender, sexual, ethnic, and class lines WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING IN IRAN LATELY?
Indeed the elite class has grown richer in spite of sanctions due to massive privatisation of industries over decades and concentration of wealth into the hands of state and military-linked contractors whose holdings are not taxed or transparent Meanwhile workers across sectors from education to gas and oil are hired under widespread neoliberal hyper-exploita-
The elite class has grown richer in spite of sanctions due to massive privatisation of industries over decades and concentration of wealth into the hands of state and military-linked contractors whose holdings are not taxed or transparent
The continued building of social bases around this mobilisational pole, and popular internationalist solidarity with such homegrown grassroots-built programs for democracy in Iran, arguably offers stronger prospects for democracy in the long-term than the mythic quick fix presented by the intervention of self-interested foreign powers or reform within the system
tive temporary contracts as labour leaders are jailed for protesting While Trump s imposition of maximum sanctions led to a sharp fall in the currency s value and ballooning inflation the foundations for gross domestic inequality had already been laid by the Islamic Republic over decades Additionally, the current uprising echoed demands made during the Woman Life Freedom uprising that saw society’s widespread rejection of state-sponsored gender injustice whether in family law and civil rights, policing of dress and women s bodies, or labour
The Islamic Republic, like the Pahlavi monarchy before it, has also pursued centralist development policies which have enriched the country s Persian centre while institutionalizing the organised abandonment of peripheral regions populated by national minorities including Kurdish, Baluch, Arab, and Lor communities This, coupled with repression of linguistic and civil rights, has brought many from these communities to the streets All of these factors together with sustained deadly state repression form the roots of people s fury at the Islamic Republic, and their calls for its abolition This fury is certainly not an invention orchestrated by foreign powers, as some suggest At the same time, support for Pahlavi among a portion of protesters and the diaspora demand attention While this base has called for his return either as shah or leader of a transitional council the reality is that this support is uneven and limited In reality, it often comes out of a sense of desperation and the desire for a tangible solution
As Iranian studies scholar Elham Hoominfar argues: “support for Pahlavi signals despair not consensus Others have similarly analysed this limited support within protests across specific regions, as well as the lack of a network loyal to Pahlavi in the state apparatus that could defect and seize power
Beyond this, the US does not have a good track record of bringing democracy to Iran as evidenced by the 1953 US-led coup of the democratic prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh and the return of a deeply repressive monarchy Moreover, a sober view demands that we recognise the contradiction that a democratic transitional program can be delivered to Iran by a foreign power that has facilitated a genocide in Gaza the last two years and the occupation of Palestinians for much longer Nor can it be delivered by the United States, a nominally democratic superpower whose own people have been fighting its slide into authoritarianism History makes it hard to imagine that
such powers would intervene in Iran for anything other than their own economic and geopolitical interests It is equally hard to imagine that they would support the building of a democratic political system which is anathema to their own patently anti-democratic systems THE STRUGGLE FOR A DEMOCRATIC TRANSITIONAL PROGRAM
The progressive sections of the country s organised civil resistance have fought at great cost to abolish the state and delineate a democratic program, while also opposing the movement’s co-optation by foreign powers as well as a return to past authoritarian systems During the first days of the uprising many of these organisations issued several calls to action while participating in protests This included a statement endorsed by the Retirees Union, Kermanshah Electricity and Metal Association, the Do Not Execute Campaign, the Council for Organizing the Protests of Contract Oil Workers the Coordinating Council of Nurses’ Protests Call of the Women of Iran and other groups Other labour unions issuing similar statements included the nationwide Coordination Council for Teachers Unions and the Bus Workers’ Syndicate The Iranian Writers’ Association, which has a long history of fighting censorship both under the shah and the Islamic Republic added to these calls as did a coalition of student activists across five major Iranian universities ALL BETS ARE OFF IN IRAN OR ON (LITERALLY)
Among the minoritized peoples that have long faced the oppression of Persian nationalism and socio-economic disenfranchisement notable statements included those from the Coordinating Organization of Baluchistan Protests and a Collective of Civil and Political Activists and Currents from Kermanshan, Ilam, and Lorestan as well as the Kurdish Civil Society In Iranian Kurdistan in particular where popular movements have long fought for
civil and linguistic rights autonomy and democracy statements that stand out include those from six Kurdish Women s Organisations the Kurdistan Teacher s Trade Association, and Varisheh Moradi, a Kurdish feminist political prisoner whose death sentence was recently overturned and her case slated for retrial These and other organisations have coalesced over years to propose a democratic transitional program for the interlocking crises facing millions of Iranians
The first expression of their cohesion occurred during the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising when twenty civil society organisations issued an unprecedented twelve-point charter offering a blueprint for Iran’s democratic transition It declared the coalition s aims to bring an end to the formation of any kind of power from above and to start a social, progressive, and human revolution for the liberation of people from any form of tyranny, discrimination, colonisation, oppression, and dictatorship ” The program included freeing all political prisoners; unconditional freedom of belief and expression; abolition of the death penalty; abolition of patriarchal legal codes; decriminalisation and official recognition of LGBTQ people; recognition of religion as a personal and non-governmental matter; socio-economic redistribution to the country’s ethnically diverse periphery; recognition of the right to learn and teach repressed languages; power sharing between the central government and local and regional councils; confiscation of wealth accumulated through rent-seeking and privatization and redistribution into education, pensions, infrastructure, and the environment; and popular reclamation of environmental resources privatized and desecrated for industry including water agricultural fields and forests
The cohering of grassroots networks like this takes years While some express uncertainty that this pole of civil society can transform into a viable alternative that is able to seize power the fact that they have already coalesced to their current level despite tremendous repression shows that further cohesion and the development of a revolutionary strategy are possible
The continued building of social bases around this mobilisational pole, and popular internationalist solidarity with such homegrown grassroots-built programs for democracy in Iran arguably offers stronger prospects for democracy in the long-term than the mythic quick fix presented by the intervention of self-interested foreign powers or reform within the system
Alborz Ghandehari is Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnic Gender and Disability Studies at the University of Utah
Support for Pahlavi among a portion of protesters and the diaspora demand attention. While this base has called for his return, either as shah or leader of a transitional council, the reality is that this support is uneven and limited
The Norwegian Nobel Committee noted that there are no restrictions in the statutes of the Nobel Foundation governing what a laureate may do with the physical symbols of the award This means that a laureate is free to keep give away sell or donate these items, the statement said However, the committee stressed that the prize itself the honour and recognition remains “inseparably linked” to the person or organisation designated as the laureate The five-member body also said it does not comment on statements or actions taken by laureates after the prize has been awarded and did not refer directly to either Machado or Trump
The committee pointed out that this was not the first time a Nobel medal had been given away In 1943, Nobel literature laureate Knut Hamsun handed his medal to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels More recently, 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov sold his medal
