Eli Lake, Columnist

How Pakistan Won the War in Afghanistan

The U.S. has abandoned Kabul, but America’s former client in Islamabad still holds leverage over the superpower it helped defeat.

September 9, 2021 at 9:00 PM UTC

By Eli Lake

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

The Taliban’s spokesman at their first official press conference in Kabul.
Photographer: HOSHANG HASHIMI/AFP

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As Washington ponders how the U.S. lost its longest war in Afghanistan, it’s worth considering another question: Who won the war?

There is the Taliban, of course, the fanatics who have formed an interim government featuring several wanted terrorists. But an even bigger winner may be the Taliban’s primary patron: Pakistan.