I still believe that's why the U.S. invaded anyway. We didn't care about overtaking a country for some silly resistance leader. You do it for big money to bilk - like Iraq and oil.
But we left without taking any lithium. At some point second and third order hypotheticals are just conspiracy theories. There is no evidence we invaded Afghanistan to get lithium, and at the time (2001), we were not worried about lithium shortages or grid storage.
Like others I don't think that that's why the US invaded, but I do think it had something to do with the enormous shit-fit thrown by the DC foreign policy / national security / defense commentariat when we pulled out of Afghanistan last summer.
