After a decade of war in Afghanistan, in a recent opinion poll conducted by the Pew Research Center and USA Today, approximately 40 to 50 percent of Americans said they believe their country failed to achieve its goal here.
Meanwhile, 38 percent of Americans believe the U.S. was successful in its war in Afghanistan, according to the survey.
"In reality, this recent survey shows that Americans are tired of the U.S. being in Afghanistan," civil society activist Mir Ahmad Joyenda said. "What the American people expected was the war to be on terrorism, to end the terrorist cells, something that America didn't achieve."
What exactly the U.S.' mission in Afghanistan was seems more up for debate than many would first suspect. Were the initial goals of the U.S. entirely consumed by counterrorism, or were they also related to changing the political system in Afghanistan, the country's social culture and approach to the rest of the world?
Afghan current affairs analyst Muhammad Ali Rezwani said the main issue in the U.S.' approach to its mission in Afghanistan was that it focused too much on individuals.
"American Policy in Afghanistan over the past 13 years was based on individuals; their policy always kept following individuals in Afghanistan, instead of the nation, national interest or country driven policies," Rezwani said. "That's why today the United States has faced a critical problem in Afghanistan and that is because of a person and an individual."
Afghanistan was the longest war in U.S. history, a war that U.S. President Barack Obama came into office trying to end. But now, with only months before the deadline in December, the Kabul-Washington Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) remains unsigned and tensions between Karzai and the U.S. are at an all-time high.
Many in Afghanistan, as well as in the U.S., fear that without the BSA in place, the coming years could be disasterous for the country. Some have even gone so far as to say Afghanistan could become like Iraq, which has been embattled in sectarian violence ever since the government turned down a similar security pact with the U.S. in 2011.