Published September 6, 2025
Karachi:
On August 15, Afghan activists around the world marked four years since the Taliban re -entered Kabul. In Washington, a virtual protest gathered people’s rights defenders, exile activists and diaspora leaders. Their message was urgent, but gloomy: Afghanistan slides into silence, not only during the Taliban oppression, but in the corridors of global power, where its situation has been referred to the margins.
“Gender apar apartheid is one of the top strategic tools,” Elika Eftikhari, CEO of Washington-based Human Rights Group Jina Alliance told the virtual protest. She emphasized that the case for labeling Afghanistan a gender’s apartheid -state does not have to be built – “it already exists on the face, as the Taliban has codified it into the law and the constitution, the justice system and controlling documents.”
This reality has defined the Afghan life since 2021. Girls excluded from the classrooms, women erased from public spaces and harsh punishments justified under a narrow interpretation of Islamic law. But while activists shouted at the virtual protest in several cities across the United States, “Taliban is terrorists,” Washington pretty much elsewhere. The US news cycles that day were consumed by the coverage of former President Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss Ukraine. Four years after Kabul fell, America seems to have moved on.
The contrast could not have been sharper. Afghanistan, once a midpoint of US foreign and military policy, has steadily faded from America’s political imagination.
A vanishing priority
After the September 11 attacks, Afghanistan Washington commanded attention for two decades. Trillions of dollars were spent and more than 2,400 US soldiers died there. Yet four years after the return of the Taliban, Afghanistan is a footnote in congress debates, a sporadic speech point in think tanks and a rarity in mainstream US media.
“Nothing in Afghanistan is in line with [current] Administration’s focus on commercial diplomacy, ”said Dr. Asfandyar Mir, senior colleague for South Asia in the Stimson Center.” Unlike the new Syrian regime, the Taliban record is worse, and the regime has no advocates among us allies. Therefore, the status quo will continue. The implication is that Afghanistan will be the region’s problem at best, and the United States will focus on its narrow terrorism interests, ”he said T-Magazine in a written answer to questions about the subject.
MIR added that “even under President Biden, the interest in Afghanistan was held only for fear of collapse on the administration’s guard considering the disastrous withdrawal of 2021 that damaged the bite administration politically.” The difference now, he said, is sharp: “The current administration works without the shadow of Afghanistan -Backring. It is more vigilant on terrorism and willing to act globally, including in South Asia.”
In other words, Afghanistan only matters in so far as it can incubate terrorist threats. Human rights, governance and development, the very columns that US officials are once invoked to justify their mission have been effectively abandoned.
The silence of Washington
A recent article on the Brookings institution, “The Second Trump Administration, which is turning a blind eye to Afghanistan” (May 2025), concluded bluntly that Aghanistan has “effectively disappeared from American political and media role since the chaotic 2021 raising.”
The author, Madiha Afzal, claimed that the retreat is not only rhetorical. “With deep cuts for humanitarian aid, reduced refugee protection and a little appetite for human rights lawyers, millions of Afghans are facing the worsening of hunger, instability and oppression,” says the analytical piece.
As Madiha Afzal notes, “Human Rights will no longer be a focus in US foreign policy,” a chilled recording in view of the extent of suffering for Afghan women and girls. Engagement persists only in fragments: Limited cooperation with the fight against terrorism and the quiet reversal of coatings on certain Taliban figures.
For Afghan activists in exile, this selective commitment is both annoying and devastating. While Russia and Iran are accused of supporting the Taliban, the US response is muted. At rallies in US cities, protesters condemned Moscow’s role, but their demands are hardly registered in Washington’s political circles.
The virtual protest, entitled Global Anti-Taliban demonstration, issued a decision shared with T-Magazine, who called on the US government and the international community to appoint Russia as a “terrorist sponsor”, acknowledges the Taliban’s system as “Gender Apartheid,” brings Taliban leaders to justice, protects the Refugee Refugees back, back, back the people’s opposition, Democracy Inigheanistan.
Sadiq Amini, an Afghan human rights activist and organizer of the protest, T-Magazine said in a written response that they welcome the Trump administration’s liberation with the Taliban. “We are very pleased with the Trump administration’s liberation of the Taliban terrorists who are responsible for Afghanistan. People in Afghanistan appreciate it. This political shift will help the people of Afghanistan get rid of the Taliban terrorists through people’s rebellion.”
Competing Priorities: Iran at Centrum
If Afghanistan has fallen by Washington’s radar, Iran has moved to the middle of his terrorist card. At a Hudson Institute’s event on August 19, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant of the President and Senior Director of Terrorism at the National Security Council, Trump Administration’s strategy.
“Iran is front and in the midst of everything we do in the region because they remain the greatest state sponsor of terrorism,” Gorka declared. “I have been telling my colleagues since January 20, you need to understand one thing when the president looks at the region, he does not push it down in the cylinders of accidents … One metric, one prism is Iran.”
Gorka, who outlined early results, boasted: “We have freed 72 US citizens in less than seven months, did Biden -Administration 80 in four years, we have killed 272 jihadier since January, excluding the houthis.”
As he mapped threats from the Middle East to Africa, Afghanistan hardly deserved to be mentioned. Groups such as IS-K, which have carried out deadly attacks in Kabul and beyond, were eclipsed by Washington’s unique occupation of Tehran.
A broken tale
The silence in Washington around Afghanistan reflects more than changing priorities. Experts say it reveals how Washington treats heritage from failures. Withdrawal in August 2021, labeled as chaotic, deadly and humiliating in public debates, the American politics arrested. Both Democrats and Republicans prefer to look away and avoid a reminder of America’s longest war and the collapse that followed.
This avoidance has consequences. By treating Afghanistan as a closed chapter, Washington hides the ongoing realities: The Taliban rule has Normaliesd Gender Apartheid, the humanitarian crisis is elaborated with help -cuts, and terrorist groups continue to exploit instability.
The activists who gathered on August 15 are trying to force the attention back. For them, efforts are existential. Women’s education, citizen freedom and Afghanistan’s fragile pluralism disappear before the eyes of the world. Still, their song repeats in a vacuum, drowned by geopolitical rivals elsewhere.
What’s coming then?
Some analysts warn that Washington’s neglect could beat back. IS-K’s reach has already been expanded to Pakistan and Central Asia, while the Taliban strikes risk destabilizing the region. Meanwhile, Russia, China and Iran are quietly expanding influence in Kabul and filling the void left by Western Retreat.
Still, the United States is unlikely to engage beyond targeted strikes or intelligence sharing. Humanitarian assistance has been pushing and refugee programs are facing tightening of restrictions. The change is clear: Afghanistan is no longer America’s priority, but it may well remain its unfinished business.
As Afzal in Brookings warns, ignoring Afghanistan does not cause his crises to disappear. The country is again becoming a testing place, not for us democracy building, but for the boundaries of Washington’s attention spans.
Afghan activists right now saying that Afghanistan’s tragedy is two -part. At home, the Taliban has institutionalized oppression to the point that gender apartheid is woven in the law. Abroad, the nation has been abandoned by the very power that once claimed to free it.
“Gender apartheid”, as Eftikhari put it, “is one of the top strategic tools” of the Taliban rule. And yet, for the global community, it is not even a strategic concern. For the women and girls who have lost their futures, for activists who are taved or exiled, and for ordinary Afghans trapped between poverty and oppression, Washington’s silence can feel like the traitor.
Nilofar Mughal is a Washington-based journalist, previously affiliated with The Voice of America
All facts and information is the author’s sole responsibility
