Game changer:
The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials
On the other hand:
What happens when you superimpose a trillion dollars worth of natural resource wealth on a primitive society? That's what happened in Saudi Arabia, and the results were not pretty. A Defense Department memo quoted in the linked New York Times article makes the parallel explicit by suggesting that Afghanistan could become "the Saudi Arabia of lithium." Let's hope that doesn't turn out to be true.
The world does not need another Saudi Arabia with wealthy Wahhabis.
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