I think it was the right choice to leave Afghanistan. It has the tribal makeup that is for eg affecting Ethiopia now. You can try your best to get a society to move forward and move beyond tribal loyalties, but we see it all over the globe, it's difficult. Who are we to impose our ideals of government on people who don't want that? These tribal insecurities are rife across Africa (Nigeria, Ethiopia) and in some Asian countries (Lebanon a prime example too). Of course the sad part about this is you leave people like the Taliban to take over because they have the one thing that can possibly unite those tribes that the Government don't - Islam.
As long as sky wizard worshipping is prevalent, as long as people continue to think along tribal lines, states will continue to be on the brink of failure or be failed states.
Afghanistan has the added difficulty of its terrain that makes it difficult for any central government being able to have any effective control. If you have a look at a map and look at the road systems, the mountains, the entry points into the country, it is very difficult to have a centralised power that can control all of the country especially a democratic one.
Reminds me of an old indian tale about Alexander the Great talking to an old Indian mystic in funnily enough Afghanistan at the time. The mystic said that Alexander's empire was so vast and covered too many cultures that he would never be able to control all of it for long. He gave him a sort of cloth(?), asked him to step on one side and showed him that the other side would rise up, Alexander said i'll step in the middle, when he did that, the sides either side of his foot rose up.
Fuck knows if it's true but I always think of Afghanistan when I hear because of the mountain ranges that split the country up. Kabul is basically in a fucked up position. It's locked by mountains on multiple sides. Transpose a road map over a terrain map of Afghanistan and you'll see that multiple cities are not directly linked to the capital, in fact to get to a lot of them, there are either tricky roads or huge diverted routes through other cities. Herat is directly west of Kabul - there is a direct road, however its a shit road through the mountains, a road that can be easily blockaded or even destroyed - a logistical nightmare. There is a longer route, a more safer route south through Kandahar but that increases the time logistically for trucks etc by double. For just a car its 70% longer.
