Abstract

The attacks of 9/11 have re-internationalised the Afghan crisis. These terrorist attacks have led the U.S. government and its allies to launch a military operation in Afghanistan which aimed at toppling the Taliban government and at destroying the terrorist infrastructures set up by Ossama bin Laden. Meanwhile, the “international community” has committed itself to rebuilding the Afghan polity and economy, which lie in shambles after 25 years of war. Its intervention has met a mitigated success. The financial and military contribution of international donors to the reconstruction of Afghanistan has been insufficient and not properly coordinated. However, President Karzai has been using the Bonn process and the new Afghan National Army trained by the U.S., Great Britain and France to assert his authority over his fragmented and turbulent society. He is no longer the “Mayor of Kabul” and he might become the new Emir of Afghanistan, reinventing a political tradition that he inherited from the founding fathers of the Afghan kingdom.