Herat, Afghanistan in 2009: a decade before the return of the Taliban

The stunning collapse of the American-backed Afghan government in Kabul earlier this week rekindled memories created a decade ago in that war-battered country. In March 2009, a three-day weekend in Herat, the ancient Afghan city near the borders with Iran and Turkmenistan, was a welcome break from the tight security restrictions of the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul for my colleagues and me. We discovered that Herat City, despite being ravaged over centuries of conquests, had more of its historic infrastructure intact than Kabul, the capital.