The Taliban’s military takeover of Kabul three years ago this week remains one of the darkest chapters in Afghanistan’s contemporary history. A chaotic U.S. and NATO withdrawal, a precipitous collapse of Afghanistan’s republic, and the subsequent resurrection of the Taliban’s ethno-extremist emirate epitomized a monumental failure by both Afghan and international stakeholders who had invested in a democratic and prosperous Afghanistan. Failure is a natural part of progress if acknowledged and learned from. However, in this case, after three disastrous years, blame is being shifted around.
In the United States, Democrats and Republicans continue to blame each other for the failure, even as they together blame the leadership of the former Afghanistan republic. Regional countries criticize the irresponsible way in which the United States withdrew. And Afghanistan’s former leaders blame everyone else but themselves. The Taliban enjoy the show and relish the failures that resulted in their success. In such a situation, Afghanistan remains in limbo — no one is taking responsibility for picking up the pieces and dealing with the aftermath.
President John F. Kennedy once paraphrased the saying, “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.” The war in Afghanistan commenced in 2001 as the U.S. response to the most significant terrorist attack on the homeland. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, dubbed Operation Enduring Freedom, garnered overwhelming U.S. domestic support, despite the possible legal alternatives to that route, and became known as the “good war,” supported by two different administrations and in contrast to the subsequent Iraq War that turned out to have been started under false assumptions.
Twenty years on, however, following the Biden administration’s decision to carry out the Trump administration’s Doha deal by withdrawing from Afghanistan and allowing the Taliban back into power, the country was abandoned like an orphan. Efforts to break the deadlock in relations with the Taliban as it pulls Afghanistan – and Afghanistan’s women and girls in particular — back into the dark ages, have been unfocused and confusing, raising questions now about how to move forward and how the next U.S. administration might approach these complex issues.
A “Good War” Turns Ugly and “Peace” Talks Morph Into Surrender
Over the past 25 years, I have served as a senior career diplomat for Afghanistan — currently its Permanent Representative at the United Nations in Geneva, where the Taliban is not recognized as the official government of Afghanistan, and as co-founder of a civil society think tank, a former lecturer at a provincial university, and a field officer with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). My experiences and role have allowed me to maintain close interaction with Afghan, regional, and international stakeholders and have a reasonable appreciation of the situation.
Numerous U.S. and Western politicians, diplomats, and bureaucrats that I interact with contend that, after more than two decades of effort, it is no longer the international community’s responsibility to “fix” Afghanistan. They argue that any change must be initiated and organized from within Afghanistan. After the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in August 2021, President Joe Biden declared, “I was not going to extend this forever war,” wielding an all-too-common and meaningless cliché as an excuse. And two months earlier, he’d said, “The Afghans are going to have to be able to do it themselves.”
Yet during my regular conversation with a diverse group of Afghans inside the country, in neighboring countries, and beyond, after expressing understandable worries about their worsening economic conditions and severe restrictions on their basic rights and freedoms, they ask about U.S. or Western plans for Afghanistan. The majority of my Afghan interlocutors, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds, believe that the Taliban’s return to power was facilitated by the Doha talks and the resulting agreements and actions or inaction by the Trump and Biden administrations, and so any change to the status quo also will have to be initiated by foreign powers.
Both my vulnerable Afghan compatriots and my exhausted international friends have valid but divergent viewpoints that need to be reconciled.
Confusion and Deadlock
There is a general consensus among all players, as indicated in the renewed but limited U.N.-led talks in Doha, that the current status quo in Afghanistan and in its relations with the West is unstable. But the persistent blame game, decisions based on political expediency, and confusion among Western, regional, and local stakeholders have created a political deadlock under which the Taliban thrives.
Although the United States doesn’t recognize the Taliban’s “emirate,” keeps the associated Haqqani network listed as a foreign terrorist organization, and has blocked the foreign reserves of Afghanistan’s central bank, the U.S. government nevertheless maintains close operational relations with the Taliban under the secret annexes of the Doha deal, presumably for counterterrorism interests, and allegedly provides them, inadvertently or not, with considerable financial assistance. This dual-track engagement/non-engagement allows the Taliban to continue operating with impunity while the U.S./international community can maintain the fiction of clean hands.
Powers in the region such as China, Russia, and Iran that once shared a common goal of removing the U.S./NATO presence from Afghanistan, including through support to the then-Taliban insurgency, are not willing to step in and take the lead for constructive results. But while they have established de-facto relations with the Taliban and maintain resident diplomatic missions in Kabul, they haven’t yet recognized the Taliban’s emirate.
Meanwhile, Afghans who don’t support the Taliban — and who I’m convinced represent the majority — face two critical challenges, even in addition to the “alarmingly high” humanitarian toll on the Afghan people. Firstly, the oppressive Taliban regime presents a significant threat by hindering social cohesion and progress and turning Afghanistan into an internationally non-recognized pariah State. Secondly, internal blame games among democratic and anti-Taliban forces and corresponding external finger-pointing among the same drain the energy from the opposition and obstruct the ability to address the underlying issues.
In the absence of viable policy options, some countries pinned their hopes on the Taliban’s talk of counterterrorism and economic cooperation, and tried to improvise and cut bilateral deals. According to a recent Washington Institute study, in the past three years, “the Taliban had 1,382 diplomatic meetings with at least 80 countries.” While China has met with the Taliban more often than any other country, there have been 178 meetings with Western countries on development, humanitarian, and business opportunities in mines and minerals.
With brutal wars in Ukraine and Gaza and heightened tension with China, it is evident that Afghanistan is no longer among the top U.S. priorities. However, the ongoing ambiguous and contradictory U.S. policies regarding the Taliban remain a source of confusion and deadlock.
Might a New US Administration Break the Logjam?
There are indications that a new president in the White House next year could break the impasse. Of Biden’s two potential successors, maybe Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump, who initiated the Doha deal, will invite his acquaintance, known to him as “Abdul,” i.e., Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister, to Camp David, perhaps even offer diplomatic recognition in exchange for access to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, a facility Trump specifically mentioned in his nomination acceptance speech as a bulwark against China.
On the other hand, if she becomes the first female president of the United States, Vice President Kamala Harris may place greater priority on democratic and human rights principles. She should label the Taliban as a regime committing gender apartheid, implement necessary sanctions, and end the deal-making that favors the Taliban based on the secret annexes of the Doha deal.
Either the recognition of the Taliban by Trump or their complete isolation and sanction by Harris will pave the way for changing the current awful status quo, which hinders efforts to address the dire human rights and humanitarian conditions and to address the regime’s support of terrorist groups under its patronage. Recognition would be unconscionable, but if Trump goes that route, it may lead to further internal divisions among the Taliban, possibly shortening their rule.
In both possible scenarios, the onus is on Afghanistan’s emerging civil and democratic forces to unite and prepare to lead the country out of its dire predicament. Commitment to resistance and change by civil society actors in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Iran are sources of inspiration. The regional and international partners also have a stake in the restoration of a responsible, inclusive, and peaceful Afghanistan.