This is an opinion piece and as written is good journalism. It makes broad generalisations but generalisations usualy contain a large measure of insight. Afghanistan is a backward pre-modern nation. It has never been a cohesive political state as we know it, rather a medieval rural feudal society run by regional chiefs. The Pushtoon ethnic group was permitted the trappings of power in Kabul i.e. the monarchy as long as they didn't interfere with the other ethnic groups in the provinces. The expulsion of the Taliban finally put an end to this historical bargain. The very, very small westernised urban middle/upper class mostly located in Kabul was decimated by the civil war which followed the communist coup and subsequent Russian "invasion". Most left the country leaving Kabul to largely illiterate refugees and migrants from the rural hinterlands. Ironically it was the Afghan communists who wanted to pull Afghanistan into the 20th century by introducing reforms and curbing the powers of the mullahs. They failed for the same reasons the west is failing in Afghanistan (and Iraq): You can't impose foreign social and political values on an unwilling populace. Social change takes both a willingness and generations to achieve.