In the three years since he returned to power, the Taliban established a regime of gender apartheid in Afghanistan. It is the only country in the world where secondary and higher education is forbidden to girls and women over 12 years old. Afghanistan is a disaster, as is Western policy towards it. We must learn from our mistakes and not repeat them with the new Syrian government.

Washington spent $2.3 trillion in Afghanistan. No less More than 2,324 U.S. military personnel, 3,917 U.S. contractors, and 1,144 allied troops paid the ultimate price to transform the country into a free and prosperous democracy. A few 70,000 of our Afghan allies did the same.

The Taliban has outlasted the US-led coalition and the Afghan National Army. It is now the de facto government of Afghanistan. Whether the West likes it or not, a terrorist group that we have spent decades fighting now controls the political and economic destiny of at least 43 million people.

The West lacks the political will to drive the Taliban from power a second time. But they cannot engage with the de facto Afghan government, much less influence or shape events on the ground, because the Taliban is still designated as a terrorist group. This political designation seems incompatible with the objectives we wish to achieve in Afghanistan.

Since the West relies on mediators like Qatar to communicate with the de facto Afghan government, our intelligence gathering capabilities and counterterrorism operations have developed blind spots for Afghanistan-based terrorist groups such as Khorasan Province of the Islamic State. Yet wasn’t our inability to monitor Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, one of the reasons we invaded that country in the first place?

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is also listed as a terrorist group. Although skepticism is justified, HTS has spent more than half a decade adopt pragmatism. This includes give up transnational jihadism, training the Syrian Government of salvation, building a broad coalition of opposition factions, moderation its social agenda, and dismantling Al-Qaeda and ISIL cells in Idlib province.

The West missed an opportunity to build relationships, gather intelligence, and develop a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy with Idlib-based factions due to the designation of HTS as a terrorist group. This is also, at least in part, why we were wrong in our approach Bashar al-Assad during the last years of his regime.

Turkey did not make the same mistake. This is why Ankara, not Russia or Iran, is now the main power player in Syria – and one of the most important players in the Middle East. Not only will Turkey lead reconstruction and refugee resettlement efforts, but it will also likely play an active role in the de-Baathification of Syria. Namely, by training and arming the Syrian army according to NATO standard.

HTS is far from perfect. However, after almost 14 years of war, it clearly controls most of Syria – and therefore the economic and political destiny of some countries. 25 million people. Delisting HTS as a terrorist group and establishing diplomatic relations with the new Syrian government would allow most Western countries to have a permanent presence in Damascus for the first time in more than a decade.

To complement Turkey’s efforts, the West could assist the Syrian government on issues related to legal and economic reforms, infrastructure development, truth and reconciliation between different sects, prosecution of war crimes committed by Assad, Hezbollah, Iran and Russia against the Syrian people, and advising the government in drafting a new constitution.

The West could also pressure the new Syrian government to adopt policies that favor our interests. Chief among them is protecting the rights of women and minority groups, ensuring that ISIL detainees in U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led and controlled by the FDS, remain imprisonedand guarantee that Russia is permanently excluded from its bases in Latakia and Tartous.

Ultimately, the West must be more pragmatic in its foreign policy by focusing more on advancing our strategic interests and less on political theater to attract and retain specific blocs of voters. The best time to adopt a more pragmatic foreign policy was yesterday, in Afghanistan. The next best time is today, in Syria.

George Monastiriakos is a part-time law professor at the University of Ottawa.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.