The strategic end state is to now allow the Afghans to take over and ‘fix’ Afghanistan into whatever they want: republic, autocracy, or unending civil war.  The Afghans have a constitution, a seated government, and a national defense force.  What sovereignty dictates is that they control their own destiny domestically.  What we owe the state and the Afghan people is a protected space in which to work this out.

Can the Afghan government credibly demonstrate its responsiveness to its own people so that no non-state actors use Afghanistan as their battleground?  Either the current leadership will make their country work or Afghans who can do better will replace them.  Or maybe the country will split; after all, if Afghanistan’s current borders trap together people who can’t or won’t get along, then it is not a viable state.  Borders have to be congruent with a system of governance that promises and delivers a social contract predicated on responsibility and accountability at all levels, otherwise Afghanistan’s sovereignty is only a fig leaf and deserves neither respect nor recognition from Afghans or from us.