The Afghan government seems to be on the edge of collapse and the US hasn't even left yet. ANA soldiers are deserting and fleeing across the borders to their Central Asian neighbors. Some generals are drafting untrained civilians to plug the gaps, and the Taliban have isolated many provencal capitals so that they can only be supplied from the air.
The empire is fading comrades, the war is almost over.
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Don't forget the gold, platinum, silver, copper, iron, chromite, lithium, uranium, aluminium, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, turquoise, and lapis lazuli.
Plus large amounts of rare earth minerals. It sits between two continents so there is some funky geologic stuff going on there.
America has decided it will source its rare earth minerals through a new method: sending a large pumpkin-human hybrid to the homes of various world leaders at 3 am to scream "GIVE ME THE MINERALS" and when they give him the wrong minerals, he will scream "NO! I DON'T WANT THAT!" until they give him all the dysprosium and rhodium they have, and leave them with nothing but nightmares and the wistful longing that he would have just asked for the cheese. This is also a distraction method which will allow the US to steal all the country's oil overnight by way of a fleet of giant, genetically-modified nematodes with drinking straws.