The Taliban have reacted to the re-election of Barack Obama: they’ve made a statement advising the president to accept defeat, leave Afghanistan and focus on America’s internal issues.

For me, as someone who endured life and torture at the hands of the Taliban as a young child, what is deeply depressing is the fact that the Taliban have found the ability to communicate so well. They have a well-functioning website in multiple languages. Dealing with them has been a collective failure of both the international community and the Karzai-led Afghan government

In more than a decade of tenure, Hamid Karzai has failed, and disastrously. His gravest shortcoming has been his lack of vision, argument and positive narrative for the future of Afghanistan and its people. In the last decade of conflict in the forever conflict-ridden country, Karzai has failed to woo his own Pashtun tribe (which the Taliban is made up of) to support him and his government and he has also failed to constructively engage with other ethnic groups. He has failed to build on to the sense of hope and optimism which had engulfed the country soon after the fall of the Taliban. He has failed even to communicate with the Pashtuns to stop them supporting the Taliban in their villages.

In the United States, Obama will soon, if he has not been already, be made aware of the message directed at him by the Taliban. He will once again have to face the reality of a decade-long mission being lost, one which has taken thousands of lives but is yet to give hope to the desperate people of Afghanistan. Both he, and through him, the Afghan government must realise that time is running out and fast.

The US and its allies need to revisit their Afghanistan strategy. They need to re-evaluate their standing on how to deal with the Taliban, and of course, how to assist Karzai (if he is willing) to improve governance and win back the lost trust of the Afghan people.

There have indeed been great success stories in the country too: there are more women active and working in Afghan society; there are hundreds of thousands of girls and boys who have the chance to go to school and university; more Afghans have access to medical care and safe and clean water. The majority of the population now have access to mobile phones and internet, something which has proved life-transforming.

Although, Karzai’s government has failed to deliver security, Afghans still have not lost hope that it could be achieved. The new generation of Afghans are well aware of how much is at stake if the Taliban return. All eyes are one Obama’s next moves. He has the chance now to open a new door for Afghans beyond 2014 when the international troops finally pull out. Let’s hope he destroys the Taliban’s dream of returning to power, makes the Afghan administration change for its own sake, and encourages them to offer an alternative that is different and better than that which the Taliban offer.

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Rohullah Yakobi is a Labour party and Movement for Change activist, tweeting @kohnadeh