How to Lose a War

“Complex, unique, enlightening. . . . Saikal’s book is channeling the reformist, pluralistic and democratic governmental and societal elements who wanted to serve their country . . . but found themselves on the fringes, frustrated about the direction Afghanistan is taking but void of resources and opportunities to make corrective differences.”—Cipher Brief “A compelling and meticulously documented analysis, with much new eyewitness material, of the abject policy and governance failures of successive US administrations and their Afghan leadership proteges. One of the most depressing chapters of modern world history, and Saikal clearly articulates the lessons to be learned from it.”—Gareth Evans, former Australian Foreign Minister and president emeritus of the International Crisis Group “Amin Saikal is a leading scholar of international relations and the Middle East. He has provided a great public service by turning scholarly attention to his country of origin. This insightful and tragic account of failed U.S. intervention in Afghanistan is essential reading, especially for Western policy makers seeking to reshape far away lands in their own image.”—Atul Kohli, David Bruce Professor of International Relations, Princeton University “Saikal offers us a credible and accessible perspective on how the outsiders’ failure of imagination, coupled with the incompetence and corruption of the Afghan political elite, brought us to where we stand today. The lessons Saikal draws are as insightful as they are intriguing, worth everyone’s attention.”—Hassan Abbas, author of The Return of the Taliban: Afghanistan after the Americans Left ​ “An excellent analysis of the failures of US policy in Afghanistan. It incisively explains how America’s ambitions exceeded its grasp and, despite lofty ideals, became embroiled in frictions that it poorly understood and tragically compounded.”—James Piscatori, coauthor of Muslim Politics “Relying on well-placed insider sources, Amin Saikal offers a rigorous and gripping narrative of why the U.S. lost the war in Afghanistan. The book delves deep into the complex reasons for the U.S. policy failure and provides a sobering assessment of the lessons learned.”—Anne Likuski, author of Al-Qaida in Afghanistan