Global Courant 2023-04-18 04:11:11
Afghanistan’s economic and political isolation since the Taliban takeover in August 2021 has exacerbated the country’s humanitarian crisis. The World Food Programme projected that between November 2022 and March 2023, the number of food insecure Afghans would rise to 20 million, including 3.2 million under the age of five. Some six million people were classified as in urgent need of assistance.
Arguments that the West should try to deal more effectively with the Taliban were made by US-backed governments in Kabul after the coalition’s 2001 invasion following the 9/11 terror attack in New York.
These were the driving forces behind the Peace talks in Doha in 2018, leading to a deal in which the US agreed to withdraw its troops by May 2021. The US failed to meet this deadline, and as the newly installed Biden administration procrastinated, US troops were forced to make a chaotic withdrawal before the Taliban took control of Kabul in August of that year.
The Taliban has been classified as a terrorist organization since 2001. Nevertheless, there are repeated calls from the West for some involvement. Arguments for involvement are twofold: firstly on purely humanitarian grounds, but also arising from the belief that continued complete isolation would lead the Taliban to tighten their already oppressive policies.
Some advocates argue that engagement should go beyond the current focus of merely providing humanitarian aid and towards the politically and diplomatically arena. Washington was even about to open diplomatic channels to the potential recognition of the Taliban regime in March 2022. But the plan was put on hold when the Taliban banned girls’ high school.
Many of the US sanctions against the Islamic Emirate (IE) have been softened in the past 18 months through the issuance of general licenses from the US Treasury Department. These are intended to facilitate broad financial relationships between the US and other countries and entities around the world.
Schoolgirls attend class in Herat on August 17, 2021, after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Many wondered how long this will be tolerated by the regime – and now girls over 12 are not allowed to go to school. Photo: AFP/Aref Karimi
In fact, as of December 2021, Afghanistan-related permits allow for most financial transactions involving the Taliban and its subsidiary, the Haqqani Network (a group that remains officially under the leadership of the Taliban, but has its own chain of command and semi-autonomy). But direct transfers of funds to these groups, which are still classified as terrorist entities, remain prohibited.
The IE even got an exemption from the US sanctions regime designed to punish Russian companies after the invasion of Ukraine. below GL28individuals and companies can Get on deal with the Russian TransKapitalBank (TKB).
But the 18 months of Taliban rule in Afghanistan show that this easing has not been met with any concessions on the part of the Taliban government. Those who expect Taliban involvement could be reciprocated seem to have seriously underestimated the group’s staunch adherence to its repressive core ideology — even at the cost of ignoring the deteriorating reality on the ground.
Afghanistan’s extremist rulers have intensified their repressive policies instead of responding positively to the easing of sanctions. This is particularly pronounced in the case of policies related to women, as shown in the table below:
Taliban decisions restricting women’s rights in parallel with waivers of US sanctions through Treasury Department (GL) general permits. Kambaiz Rafi, author provided
Kabul now has more than $3.7 billion from donor countries in 2022 – nearly a third of those from the US. This is less than half of the more than $8 billion which the former Western-backed republic received annually before 2021. But it indicates that there is still a measure of international goodwill that a less oppressive regime could make better use of.
Is the Taliban playing ball?
The reluctance of Taliban leaders to pursue genuine involvement is evidenced by the fact that the Taliban office in Doha, Qatar, which played a major role in the negotiations on the US withdrawal agreement in February 2020, has been marginalized since the acquisition. The man who led the talks from the Taliban side between 2015 and 2020, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai – who has been critical of the regime’s treatment of girls – has been relegated to the relatively obscure post of deputy foreign minister.
The administration of the Taliban government is now firmly in the grip of Hibatullah Akhundzadeh, who shifted the group’s power base to the southern province of Kandahar, where conservative loyalists tend to dominate. He is now seen as having tightened his faction’s grip on IE’s domestic and regional policies.
Akhundzadeh’s attitude towards women could be seen in his refusal to meet UN Deputy Director General Amina Mohammad – the tallest woman in the UN – when she visited in January, mainly to engage the leadership of the regime.
Prominent women’s activist Mehbouba Seraj – who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 – remains one advocate of engagement with the Taliban. “If we don’t sit down and talk to them and see exactly what we can do and what they can do, the ones who are going to pay for it, and who are paying a huge price, are the poor people of Afghanistan, the women and children,” he said. them in February.
But the reality since August 2021 shows that ideological extremism cannot be countered by wishful thinking. Any continued Western involvement should come with a price tag for the IE, not offered cheaply. It must be based on clear communication of reforms by the regime, especially to improve conditions for women and a whole generation of girls who are being denied education.
Kambaiz Rafi is an ESRC postdoctoral researcher at SOAS, University of London.
This article has been republished from The conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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