Coercive Diplomacy and an “Irrational” Regime

All conditions for the successful application of coercive threat clearly favoured the US to get its demands regarding the handover of the al Qaeda leadership and closure of the terrorist camps in Afghanistan accepted by the Taliban. However, American coercive diplomacy failed because of a potent combination of factors, namely, an extreme brand of Islam which the Taliban practised, the basic symbiotic relationship between al Qaeda and the Taliban, the special religious role of Mullah Omar and the Pushtunwali code so profound to the Taliban’s sense of identity. The Taliban held an irrational and fatalistic view that was simply impervious to superior American military power or fear of regime change and even fear of loss of life. The implications for American foreign policy and the war on terrorism are worrisome: when dealing with terrorist groups or failed states in which the leadership has a radically different and highly destructive messianic religious and cultural referent, as was the case with the Taliban, coercive diplomacy is likely to fail.