Time for a more realistic approach to Afghanistan

Taliban control over Afghanistan stands today virtually unchallenged. No political or military force appears likely to remove Taliban rule for the foreseeable future. Reacting to the regime’s policies, the United States and the international community have thus far been unified in withholding from the Kabul government full diplomatic recognition. Yet efforts to have the Taliban change its ways by our contingently denying legitimacy and trying to isolate the regime have clearly failed. The present US approach, with its narrowly defined, intermittent engagement, has little to show for it. With a new administration in Washington, this is an opportune time to reconsider America’s approach and to normalize diplomatic encounters with the Islamic Emirate. There is reason to believe that through regular contacts and building relationships with its leaders the US will be positioned to gain influence with the Taliban regime and better hold it to account for its more reprehensible policies. This course also offers greater promise of realizing American hopes for an Afghanistan inhospitable to global terrorists, less vulnerable to falling deeper into China and Russia’s orbit, and more respectful of the human rights of its citizens.

In altering its approach to Afghanistan, the US government must take into account that the Taliban movement is foremostly ideological. In negotiating with the new Afghan leaders, American interlocutors have regularly encountered the Taliban’s seeming inability to act transactionally — something the movement’s members see as demanding they compromise on core Islamic principles. US officials need to concede that policy reforms are not likely to result from external pressures but from the realignment of power within the highest echelons of the country’s leadership. At the same time, all evidence points to the Taliban movement not being monolithic. Within its senior ranks, there are apparently those who may be more open to dialogue and inclined to more pragmatic reasoning. While outsiders’ overt efforts to divide the Taliban are likely to fail, greater engagement may offer an opportunity to strengthen the hand of those elements in the leadership prepared to challenge the Taliban’s hard-core inner circle. It may also offer an opportunity to learn more about divisions at the highest levels. But none of this can be achieved by shunning the Islamic Emirate.

A good place to start in considering a different approach toward the Afghan regime is to recognize that there are policy areas where US objectives overlap with those of the Taliban. Chief among these is counterterrorism. Although Washington accuses the Kabul government of retaining links to al-Qaeda and tolerating other terrorist organizations finding sanctuary in Afghanistan, the US and the Taliban have a common enemy in the Islamic State-Khorasan Province. Unfortunately, intelligence sharing and other forms of collaboration remain minimal. The lack of trust that impedes cooperation is unlikely to be overcome while Afghanistan is being kept at arm’s length. Humanitarian assistance presents another area of convergent interests. Here again, mutual suspicion of motives is a factor in hampering more effective aid delivery. According to several major aid agencies, working with an internationally recognized Afghan government would help improve the handling of the country’s food and health crisis by allowing greater coordination among aid providers and creating a better monitored, more accountable delivery system. If left unaddressed, these twin crises could eventually spill across Afghanistan’s borders and destabilize the wider region.

A permanent US diplomatic presence in Kabul might also help sway Taliban behavior in an area of sharpest divergence: namely, over the Islamic Emirate’s harsh social policies. As it happens, one of the major fault lines within the Taliban leadership is over differences in the educating of women and girls. Regular diplomatic engagement could possibly strengthen the case made by those who argue the advantages of a softer approach. What is patently obvious is that, by itself, overt foreign condemnation has been unproductive and, if anything, seems to have stiffened resistance to reform. Similarly, despite repeated international pleas to form a more politically and ethnically inclusive regime, the Taliban has largely ignored the criticism.

Differences with the regime notwithstanding, to date no country has taken the decision to materially assist any of the dozen or so principal resistance groups operating in largely non-Pashtun northern Afghanistan. Behind this is the fear that were these disunited militias to succeed in bringing down the Kabul government, the almost inevitable outcome would be a scramble for power reminiscent of the fratricidal civil war of 1992-96. Neighboring countries also wish to avoid once again being drawn into the conflict through proxies. With all its faults, a stable Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is generally viewed as a safer, more realistic bet than any presently plausible alternative.  

Not surprisingly then, a growing number of states have established a diplomatic presence in the country that falls just short of granting full political recognition. While the US continues to largely distance itself from Afghanistan — not a single American diplomat has set foot on Afghan soil since August 2021 — the country has increasingly been drawn into the China-Russia-Iran strategic orbit. These governments have cultivated close diplomatic contacts with Taliban officials and expanded bilateral economic ties. Other regional states have similarly deepened their engagement with Afghanistan. Besides increasing their presence in Kabul, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates have turned over control of Afghan embassies in their countries to the Taliban. As further evidence of easing isolation, the United Nations and European Union have established permanent missions in Kabul, and the Taliban has been invited to several international forums where it has received red carpet treatment. Sanctioned Taliban leaders have obtained travel permissions from the UN Security Council, and a delegation was allowed to join last June’s UN-organized Doha conference on Afghanistan. All told, international legitimatization of the Taliban government is a growing reality.

A decision by Washington to normalize relations with the Taliban regime would admittedly be politically difficult. The move is bound to draw accusations of selling out. Influential US women’s organizations and many other groups have been steadily calling for the tightening of sanctions against the Taliban for its policies. Moreover, the newly installed administration of Donald Trump is expected to question the costly financing of US humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan, seen as helping to prop up the Kabul government. As incoming president, Trump recently linked aid with the Taliban’s return of US weapons left behind in Afghanistan. And, out of frustration with the Taliban’s failure to take more aggressive counterterrorism measures, the president’s national security advisor, Mike Waltz, is advocating that the US intelligence community take a more active role in dealing with the threats from terrorist groups operating on Afghan soil and consider assisting one of the resistance groups. A possibly more aggressive approach by the Trump administration does not, however, preclude adopting a more pragmatic course in pursuit of our security interests in Afghanistan, one that better reflects the on-the-ground realities. While there are no assurances of early rewards from a regularized US diplomatic presence in Kabul, a new approach to the Taliban regime offers the promise of opening pathways to impactful relations now denied us.