US–Afghanistan Relations Post-withdrawal: Is There a Future?

Abstract

Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, no country, including the United States (US), has yet recognised the former. The US has consistently urged the regime to comply with the Doha agreement that emphasised an inclusive government. Moreover, the Biden administration has repeatedly asked the regime to respect human rights and allow girls education and employment, but in vain. What explains the divergences in US–Afghanistan relations post-withdrawal? What is the trajectory of the US–Taliban ties in the current context? Above all, is there any possibility of the US recognition of the Taliban regime in the foreseeable future? Based on primary data, it is posited that the relations between the US and the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan are divergent and currently antagonistic due to the Taliban’s non-compliance with the Doha agreement. Futuristically, the study explores three scenarios to predict US–Afghanistan relations. First, there is a likelihood of US–Afghanistan rapprochement if the Taliban do the US bidding. Second, in cases of non-compliance, the US would get tough on the regime in terms of further sanctions. However, the Taliban would consolidate (informal) ties with China, Russia and other regional countries, including Pakistan. Third, the US has the military capabilities to do regime change in Afghanistan in case of another 9/11-type incident in the US.

Keywords

Afghanistan Taliban counterterrorism women rights US–Taliban relations South Asia

Introduction

The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on 15 August 2021 and the consequent collapse of the republican system have resulted in profound humanitarian, economic and diplomatic failures for the former. The insurgent group had a swift takeover of the country when the US and its NATO partners withdrew their security forces from Afghanistan as per the Doha Agreement (February 2020). Since then, the Taliban have been a de facto regime that has not yet been recognised by any country in the world (Abawe et al., 2022; Toosi, 2021). Moreover, it seems that the United States (US) has no plans to recognise the Taliban in the foreseeable future due to competing interests. The former has reflected its post-withdrawal policy behaviour in the sense that normalisation of relations with the Taliban authorities relies on implementing the Doha commitments that the latter made on counterterrorism, human rights, women education and, above all, establishing an inclusive type of government (Faheem & Khan, 2022). However, the Taliban have acted contrary in the past three years.

For instance, in late March 2022, the Taliban pledged to reopen girls’ schools, but they have not stood by their promise. The killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri in a US drone attack was another incident that added to distrust between the Taliban and the US (US Department of State, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c, 2022d). Moreover, the Taliban regime, calling itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, faces some serious challenges, that is, a humanitarian crisis. Though various observers urged the Western world to financially help the ordinary residents suffering from an acute shortage of food, shelter and medicines, few favoured the Taliban in terms of external legitimacy (Thomas, 2021). Ironically, the Taliban has so far acted in a manner that defies Western notions of democracy, civil society and economic management.

Nonetheless, the US has exerted pressure on the Taliban regime to form an inclusive government, respect human rights, allow women’s education and guarantee the non-use of Afghan territory for terrorism against the US and its European allies. What explains the divergences in US–Afghanistan relations post-withdrawal? What is the trajectory of the US–Taliban ties in the current context? Above all, is there any possibility of US recognition of the Taliban regime in the foreseeable future? These are some pertinent questions that this study attempts to address analytically and empirically. However, before addressing the posed questions, it seems pertinent to review, briefly but critically, key studies on the subject matter. The exercise would help with the contextualisation of US–Afghanistan relations in the current context.

The majority of the existing literature on US–Taliban relations to date has focused on probing the US withdrawal and highlighting the limitations of improving bilateral relations. Other commentary has focused on expressing scepticism over the future of the Doha Agreement, exploring the political identity of the Taliban regime, gauging the responses of neighbouring countries, or considering ways the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan can be mitigated. For example, Joshua Snider in his article ‘Taliban 2.0 and US national security policy in Afghanistan’ has explained the causes of US withdrawal from Afghanistan and enumerated factors that could affect the US’ stance on the Taliban in the coming days. The authors argued that due to different variables, the US has limited policy options vis-à-vis counterterrorism, regime recognition and containment of China. However, the author has not shed empirical light on the Taliban–US relations (Snider, 2022).

Matthew Feldstein critically analysed the Doha Agreement in his article ‘A unified voice: The US-Taliban peace deal’ in which he argues that it is unsatisfactory in its current form. Thus, it ought to be renegotiated in a manner that protects American strategic interest in the region (Feldstein, 2023). In another study titled ‘US–Taliban relations: A historical perspective,’ Bilal et al. (2022) elaborated on US–Taliban relations by analysing different stages ranging from the Afghan jihad of the 1980s to the anti-Taliban stance post-9/11. The most recent phase where the US negotiated with the Taliban is regarded as a unique development where the Taliban directly met with the emissaries of a country they fought with in the preceding decades. Again, this study did not probe into the complexities of US–Afghanistan relations with reference to the Taliban regime, which has been practically controlling the country for the past three years sans any formal recognition.

In ‘Recognition of the Taliban Government in Afghanistan and International Community,’ the authors of this study discussed the responses, possibility of recognition, realignments of regional states and concerns of the international community following the Taliban takeover. The authors argue that recognition of the Taliban regime is based upon the strategic calculations, long-terms goals and values of different countries adjoining Afghanistan. In addition, the study indicates that the international community having stakes in Afghanistan is divided two major groups: the US-led group and the China–Russia-led group. The first group is more cautious regarding their bilateral relations and recognition of the Taliban, whereas the second group endeavours to fill the vacuum created by the US withdrawal and thus prefers to diplomatically engage with the Taliban (Faheem & Khan, 2022). Though this study has focused on regional geopolitics, yet the complexities of US–Taliban are not analysed thematically.

Last but not least, Ibrahimi (2022), in ‘False negotiations and the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban’, has elaborated on different aspects of the Afghan peace process, such as the US–Taliban negotiations and the intra-Afghan dialogue. The author posits that the Afghan peace process has ended without a meaningful outcome. For instance, questions relating to political settlement post-withdrawal remained unanswered. However, some important questions on the nature of the US’ approach to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan are also not raised.

Hence, the existing studies, as analysed above, vary in focus. While some have delved into the historicity and foreign policy of Afghanistan in the modern era, others are more into analysing the causes and the processes of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. Thus, few studies have looked into the strategic windows of the said stakeholders in terms of analysing their prevailing and future interests, such as possibilities of US–Taliban negotiations and the likelihood of regime recognition by Washington. These questions are at the core of the present study, which attempts to address them with primary and secondary data in the following sections.

US–Afghanistan Relations Post-withdrawal

Since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, the relations between the US and Afghanistan have been unstable due to differences over security, human rights, women education, frozen funds, the humanitarian crisis and the relocation of Afghan citizens to Europe and the US. As per the Doha agreement signed in February 2020 between the US and the Taliban, the two sides agreed to the following four commitments: (a) The US and its NATO troops would withdraw from Afghanistan in 14 months; (b) the Taliban would guarantee that Afghan soil will not be used as a launchpad that would threaten the security of the US; (c) the launch of intra-Afghan negotiations by March 10; (d) a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire (US Department of State, 2020). Moreover, the US expected the Taliban leadership to ensure political pluralism, protection of human rights, especially girls’ education and women employment, socio-economic security and non-use of Afghan soil for (global) terrorism.

After having controlled the country militarily and administratively, the Taliban seem to follow their own rules of the game, which are grounded in the conservative interpretation and implementation of the sharia—as shall be analysed in this article. Unsurprisingly, from day one, the Taliban’s choices and actions reflect a divergent path vis-à-vis the US-led allies, who are concerned about multiple issues that have surfaced between the two sides in the past three years. The following is an attempt, on the one hand, to identify intriguing issues between the US and the Taliban regime and, on the other, to underscore divergent approaches that the two sides have adopted to secure their respective interests in regional geopolitics.

Sources of Tension

To begin with, out of the above-mentioned Doha commitments, terrorism emanating from Afghanistan has been a perennial concern for the US since its withdrawal in August 2021. Being a sole superpower with regional presence in terms of military bases in the Gulf, the Biden administration, like its predecessors, is quite concerned about domestic security and, thus, watching out for terrorist outfits in the Middle East as well as Afghanistan. Indeed, a number of militant groups, that is, Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), have been operating from Afghan soil for decades, which Washington sees as antithetical to its national interests (Valijonovich, 2022). While the IS-K is a more hardcore and hostile terrorist outfit compared to the Taliban, the July 2022 killing of Al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in Kabul attracted global attention towards the links that the Taliban still has with Islamist groups. This is an issue in US–Taliban relations, as the Taliban committed to the Americans and NATO that it would not harbour Al-Qaeda or permit them to act against Western interests in the region (Thomas, 2022).

The killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike was the first acknowledged American operation inside Afghanistan post-withdrawal. Following the strike, the Taliban spokesperson condemned the strike and posited that the strike violated the Doha Agreement and even international principles of state sovereignty (Khaliq, 2022). Moreover, Taliban’s Interior Minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, also condemned the drone attack and denied Al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan. He vowed that the Taliban would not let any militant group use Afghan soil against any other country (Constable, 2022). While marking the American position on the matter, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, argued that the Taliban betrayed their fellow Afghans, the US and the international community by hosting globally recognised terrorists. Such a stance would undermine efforts at recognition and normalisation with the US and its allies (US Department of State, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c, 2022d).

It appears that the US still faces formidable terrorist adversaries who could recover from their losses and plan terrorist attacks against American interests transregionally. Hence, the US cannot take the eye off possible incidents and thus take preventive measures against potential terrorist threats on its soil (Bateman et al., 2022). Nonetheless, following the withdrawal, the United States seemed hopeful for the implementation of the Doha agreement where the Taliban pledged to prevent any militant group from using Afghan soil to threaten the former’s security. According to the Department of State, the US continued to engage with the Taliban to make sure the former abided by the commitments it made in Doha (US Department of State, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c, 2022d).

Another intriguing issue between the US and the Taliban relates to the latter’s non-reconciliatory attitude towards other Afghan stakeholders, such as Uzbek and Tajik ethnic interests. The US and its NATO allies emphasised the formation of an inclusive political setup post-withdrawal. However, the Taliban seemed not interested in negotiating with elements they distrusted and resisted for two decades. Nonetheless, the initiation of intra-Afghan dialogue was an agreed upon commitment under the Doha agreement, whose fulfilment remains a distant dream. Arguably, this further added to mutual misgivings between Washington and Kabul.

Moreover, another important concern for the Biden administration in the post-withdrawal scenario is related to human rights, especially girls’ education. Over the last two decades, Afghanistan has socially looked, to an extent, like a different polity than it was during the Taliban’s first regime. It made some meaningful progress in terms of women’s rights, that is, education and socio-economic mobility (OHCHR, 2022). However, immediately after the Taliban takeover in mid-August 2021, they dissolved the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and replaced it with the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Stancati, 2021).

Nevertheless, owing to the peculiar composition of the Taliban regime, there has been a difference of opinions inside the Taliban leadership about girls’ education and women’s employment (Samim, 2022). For instance, in early 2022, the Taliban spokespersons declared that girls’ secondary schools would reopen with the start of a new education year in March 2022 (Gannon, 2022). However, they reversed the decision later on. The ban on girls’ education and constraints on women’s mobility were condemned by the US as well as the international community (Gul, 2022a, 2022b).

Importantly, Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada, released a decree on women’s rights in December 2021 that categorically ignored women’s employment, education and civil activism. The decree broadly highlighted the regime’s rules regarding marriage, property, etc. However, this decree was highly panned by Afghan women activists, politicians and legal experts (Mackintosh, 2021). In response to such moves by the Taliban, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said in June 2022 that ‘what we are observing in Afghanistan is no more than a systematic and institutionalised oppression of women and their rights’ (UN, 2022). Disregarding the UN’s concerns, the Taliban, however, issued two more decrees in December 2022. First, they put a ban on girls’ higher education, and second, they disallowed women to work in national and international non-governmental organisations (Popalzai & Kottasovs, 2022). These bans were severely criticised by the US secretary of state and his European counterparts. Unequivocally, they strongly urged the Taliban to reverse their decision so that women can get education and play an effective role in the country’s uplifting (US Department of State, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c, 2022d).

A UN report published in August 2022 on the rights of women in Afghanistan claimed that women made up 18.8% of the employment sector in 2020. In 2021, the women unemployment rate stood at 13%, and in the following year, it registered a massive decline to 40%. Not only this, in 2022, around 77% of the civil society organisations run by women had neither any funds nor projects. The report also posited that by December 2021, around 84% of female media workers had been unemployed because of restrictions, that is, face covering, imposed by the Taliban (UN Women, 2022). Moreover, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) press release in March 2023, in the fourth quarter of 2022, female employment was estimated to have been 25% lower than in the second quarter of 2021. Importantly, male employment level also went down to 7% in the same period (ILO, 2023).

On its part, the US officials pressed the Taliban regime to open girls’ schools and provide women with employment opportunities in various sectors. In this respect, the US Secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken, while speaking to the CNN, said that the US’s position on lowering sanctions on the regime is contingent on the latter’s fair treatment of women and minorities in Afghanistan. He also indicated that sanctions against the Taliban leaders would not be lifted unless they respect and protect, basic human rights as enshrined in different UN conventions on human rights (US Department of State, 2021).

Above all, the fall of Kabul in August 2021 also triggered a mass evacuation of diplomats, partners, Afghan allies and US citizens who were part of the NATO mission under the former republic. According to official reports, in August 2021 alone, the American military evacuated about 124,000 Afghans, including 5,300 American citizens. The Kabul evacuation was the largest air evacuation in the history of the US (US Department of Defense, 2021). Moreover, when the evacuation from Afghanistan ended on 30 August 2021, the US Department of State reported that it helped evacuate 13,000 Afghans, 800 US citizens and 600 permanent residents via other countries (Desiderio et al., 2022). By the end of the Kabul evacuation, at least 60,000 Afghans who are eligible for Special Immigration Visa were still residing in Afghanistan (Caruso, 2022).

Having limited resources, the US nevertheless continued to evacuate a limited number of Afghan allies and green card holders via chartered planes from Kabul to Doha. However, in December 2021, the Taliban revoked permission unless Qatar agreed with the Taliban to transport Afghan labourers. Thus, the unwillingness of the Taliban, irregularity in the flights and no agreement on the evacuation of remaining individuals made the US evacuate the remaining Afghans from Pakistan, which provides easy access to them as compared to other countries (Caruso, 2022).

Besides the aforesaid issues between the US and the Taliban, what is more concerning for the former is that the return of the Taliban has exacerbated the worst humanitarian crisis in one of the world’s largest aid-dependent countries. During the former Afghan government, the United States and its international donors provided more than half of its $6 billion annual budget and met about 80% of the total public expenditures. However, financial assistance has been halted with the Taliban takeover, as the US posited that the regime betrayed the latter in terms of breach of the Doha agreement (Shapour, 2021). Consequently, as per the World Food Programme (WFP), about 92% of Afghans did not have sufficient food supply in August 2022 (WFP, 2022). In the same month, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) reported that around 1.1 million Afghan children faced acute malnutrition (UNICEF, 2022).

Contextually, however, due to humanitarian concerns, the US seemed to have worked on two fronts. First, it provided more than $1.1 billion in humanitarian assistance since the Taliban takeover, which helped to alleviate the drastic effects of the humanitarian crisis (USAID, 2022). Second, the US sanctioned some Taliban leaders and, importantly, chose to freeze Afghanistan’s financial assets worth 9.5 billion US dollars in 2021. Though this move was directed at the Taliban regime, it aggravated the humanitarian and economic crisis in the country (Fatima & Anwar, 2022). While realising the impact of frozen funds on a common Afghan, the US Department of the Treasury posited that sanctions imposed on Taliban leaders did not prohibit commercial and humanitarian transactions with Afghanistan through other bodies such as the United Nations (Congressional Research Service, 2022). However, the US and the international donors struggled to find a suitable means of transitioning ad hoc emergency aid for long-term development in war-ravaged and poverty-stricken Afghanistan (Weitz, 2022). In addition, according to the World Food Programme’s Afghanistan situation report for January 2024, around 15.8 million Afghans faced food insecurity between November 2023 and March 2024. Besides, four million people were already acutely malnourished, which included 3.2 million children. Above all, 23.7 million heads needed humanitarian assistance in 2024 (WFP, 2024).

In view of the above, what can be argued is that US–Taliban relations remained extremely tense in the wake of the US and its allies’ withdrawal from Afghanistan. The US neither chose to recognise the Taliban regime—non-recognition was also manifested by Washington vis-à-vis the Taliban’s first stint in power—nor did it encourage its allies to do so on account of the Taliban’s non-commitment to the Doha agreement as far as counterterrorism, inclusive government and intra-Afghan negotiations are concerned. Moreover, human rights violations, particularly the Taliban’s ban on girls education, logistical hindrances in the evacuation of pro-US Afghans, as well as the worsening humanitarian crisis due to US–Taliban mistrust, are additional but intriguing issues that are hallmark of non-cooperation between Kabul and Washington. Here, it is pertinent to posit that the Taliban chose not to abide by the Doha agreement due to its religious ideology, which is antithetical to the Western notion of a democratic and inclusive political system as well as women education and employment. Importantly, the Taliban fought against the US/NATO forces and the Afghan government, which was established by the Western powers, for around two decades and emerged as a strong actor. Thus, the regime faces no compulsions whatsoever to toe the American line when the latter chose to pull out due to its own calculations (Cox, 2022).

The Biden administration has, in the past three years, extremely criticised the Taliban for its non-compliance with the Doha agreement and strongly urged the regime to ensure political inclusivity, egalitarian governance, non-violation of human rights, especially women’s education, non-use of Afghan soil for (global) terrorism and socio-economic security for its population. The following section of the article tends to empirically explore areas of possible coordination/cooperation between the USA and the Taliban.

Avenues for Rapprochement

As analysed in the preceding sections, it has been more than three years since the Taliban became the de facto government of Afghanistan; to date, no country has officially acknowledged the Taliban as legitimate entity. The regime claims to be the rightful government and has called upon the US and the international community for recognition so that they get representation in international forums such as the UN (Jaafari, 2021). Since the withdrawal, US policy on Afghanistan has broadly focused on political pluralism, counterterrorism and mitigation of the humanitarian and economic crises. Operationally, however, the US’ engagement with the Taliban has been very limited; it is cautious in recognising the Taliban regime due to the latter’s lack of commitment to fulfil the American demands with reference to the Doha agreement as analysed in the preceding section. Thus, fundamental human rights, particularly women rights, an inclusive political system, and, importantly, the nature of the Taliban’s relations with international militant networks are some of the major irritants in US–Taliban ties in the current context (Sydiq, 2023). Moreover, from the Taliban’s perspective, the resumption of diplomatic ties with Washington with or without formal recognition could help them gain not only access to financial resources but also strategic and commercial confidence. For political and commercial purposes, the regime is maintaining informal diplomatic relations with a few important countries, such as China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Tajikistan, Russia and Pakistan. However, the resumption of informal diplomatic ties, let alone formal recognition, with the US depends on the composite conduct of the Taliban as committed in the Doha agreement. The Taliban have failed to satisfy American policymakers as far as inclusive government, intra-Afghan dialogue, human rights and counterterrorism are concerned. Regarding human rights, specifically women rights, violations were being done from day one. For example, girls’ education is banned by the regime despite international concerns.

Moreover, arts such as music are disallowed. In addition, women salons were closed down in July 2023. This decision would lead to the loss of about 60,000 women jobs in Afghanistan (Gharanai, 2023). Ironically, such decrees are given at a time when the international community is fully focused on women and minority rights. In an interview with UN News, Deputy Special Representative for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Markus Potzel, urged the de facto authorities in Afghanistan to let girls go to universities and schools and women to work and participate in the social life if the former desires international engagement and financial assistance (El-Ferri, 2023). In addition, political rights are also being violated since electoral politics is deemed antithetical to the Emirate’s vision of Islamic governance.

Moreover, the Taliban faces serious challenges in terms of its relations with regional countries such as Pakistan. The latter has pointed out the presence of a terrorist organisation, that is, IS-K, on Afghan soil. Indeed, Islamabad has recently pointed fingers at the Taliban for their inability to checkmate Tehrik–Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and IS-K, which are causing terrorism in different parts of Pakistan consistently; however, the Afghan Taliban denied the presence of such organisations on its territory (Zaman, 2023). Importantly, US officials reiterated their ability to strike on terrorist hideouts in the bordering areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Indeed, the latter has, in recent months, urged the US to pressure the Taliban to neutralise the TTP threat (Faheem & Khan, 2022).

Being cognisant of political correctness, the US Department of State, in an official statement released on 15 August 2022, endorsed that it follows a pragmatic engagement with the Taliban with reference to the Doha Agreement (US Department of State, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c, 2022d). Moreover, Donald Lu, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, in an interview with the Voice of America, said ‘I think there’s actually a global consensus to include Moscow, Beijing and Iran [on the Taliban]…[and] that it’s too early to look at recognition’. He argued that though some countries are endeavouring to normalise their relations with the Taliban, yet none are willing to accord formal recognition to the regime. Unless the Taliban remove bans on women education and employment—and ensure a representative government inclusive of all ethnicities, the US-led allies would not recognise the regime (Gul, 2022a, 2022b).

Nevertheless, academic discussions are ongoing within the United States about its course of action towards the Taliban in the foreseeable future. For instance, a Congressional Study Group on Foreign Relations and National Security in its 15th session discussed the possibility of the Taliban’s recognition provided the latter fulfils its Doha commitments (Brookings, 2022). However, given the regime’s ideological rigidity and political conservatism that are reflected in its policy behaviour towards the US and its NATO allies in the past three years, abiding by the Doha agreement is less likely. This shall be further analysed in the following sections. Importantly, in a recent UN-sponsored meeting held in Doha in early 2024, the Taliban regime boycotted it. The UN, which works in tandem with the US and its European allies, urged the Taliban to agree to the appointment of a UN Special Envoy for Afghanistan, lift the ban on the girls education and allow civil society members to attend the said meeting. However, the regime not only declined to oblige the international community but also decided not to participate in it (Jalalzai, 2024).

As the above discussion indicates, the Biden administration and the Taliban regime view each other antagonistically and suspiciously. Since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in mid-August 2021, the Taliban have been implementing their conservative ideology domestically and regionally. For example, the regime has fumbled at counterterrorism, whereby organisations, such as IS-K and TTP, are busy targeting security forces in, for example, neighbouring Pakistan. Moreover, there is little interaction with non-Pashtun stakeholders insofar as inclusive governance—as committed in the Doha agreement—is concerned. Importantly, the regime has received global condemnation for not letting girls and women get basic education, let alone jobs. In addition, humanitarian crises in Afghanistan have worsened under the Taliban due to their poor ties with the US-led Western world, which has hardened its stance on the regime in the past couple of years. While addressing the question of the future of US–Taliban relations, particularly analysing the rationale for American engagement with Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, the following section of the study builds some futuristic scenarios underpinned by empirical data gathered through elite interviews with stakeholders, including the Taliban.

Future Scenarios

Since US–Afghanistan relations remain non-cordial post-withdrawal due to the intriguing issues, ranging from a non-inclusive political setup to a ban on girls’ education, it is extremely difficult to ascertain the future course of bilateral interaction given the fact that the regime is adamant to overlook American policy concerns, that is counterterrorism. Owing to prevailing strategic, political, commercial and humanitarian uncertainties, the study builds the following scenarios in order to predict the future course of interaction between the US and the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

US–Afghanistan Cooperation

In a recent book titled Afghanistan: Long War, Forgotten Peace, Michael Cox posited that the US–NATO forces committed a ‘sin’ by excluding the Taliban from political negotiations and processes since they represented a major chunk of the Afghan population. Without any political space, the Taliban resorted to fighting back against the occupying forces (Cox, 2022). Hence, the US and its allies were seen as a foreign, occupying force, which the Taliban confronted through an armed struggle. It took the US almost two decades to change its policy from military confrontation to diplomatic interaction via a third party, namely, Qatar. The prolonged negotiations resulted in the Western withdrawal from war-ravaged Afghanistan in mid-August 2021. However, the US and Taliban did not see eye-to-eye post-withdrawal owing to divergent approaches and competing interests, as analysed in the preceding sections of this study. Nonetheless, the two sides may engage each other diplomatically in the foreseeable future. An official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Afghanistan) said:

Time is an important factor. I may not support the informal way of dealing with the Americans who fought with Taliban for 20 years…we may not expect any warm relationship that soon, but the important thing is that Afghanistan [under the Taliban] wants good relationship with the world including America and [it] does not want to be an enemy of any country. That is the reason the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took a balanced take to pursue good ties with regional countries including Pakistan and Iran as well as major powers such as China, Russia and the Unites States. (M. Yousufzai, personal communication, June 13, 2023)

As reflected in the above statement, the US has not been entirely discarded as an option by the Taliban. Indeed, the US has some choices to negotiate with the Taliban (Martin, 2022). Though the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 made the US adopt an isolationist policy towards the former, having observed the severe economic and humanitarian crisis—affecting the livelihood of scores of ordinary Afghans—the US has somewhat loosened its isolation policy. For instance, it has issued certain general licenses through its Treasury Department, which led to diplomatic engagement with the Taliban outside Afghanistan as well as access to the World Bank trust fund that would be invested in agriculture, education, and healthcare sectors in the country (Miller, 2022).

Moreover, the United States has selectively engaged the Taliban diplomatically. In early June 2022, the US Special Representative for Afghanistan, Thomas West and the Taliban delegation led by the Foreign Minister had a detailed two-day meeting in Doha. Following the meeting, a State Department Spokesperson remarked that full isolation could not help Washington maximise its interests in Afghanistan. Instead, diplomatic engagement can serve the American interests more candidly (Gul, 2022a, 2022b). Importantly, the Taliban were invited to attend an UN-sponsored meeting held in Doha in February 2024. However, due to the Taliban’s preoccupation with formal recognition, the UN moot went ahead without the Taliban (Aljazeera, 2024).

What can be argued in view of the aforesaid is that both the US and the Taliban have recently sent strategic vibes to each other through a third party. In our view, the US–Taliban rapprochement would become a tangible outcome if the Taliban satisfied the US and its allies’ concerns as per the Doha agreement. Put differently, the regime would have to establish an inclusive political setup through negotiations with other Afghan stakeholders, take serious security measures to keep its soil clean of terrorist entities such as IS-K and lift ban on women education and employment. Based on the developments of the past three years, it seems that the Biden administration is not willing to talk with the Taliban, let alone recognise it, until the said conditions are fulfilled by Kabul. In case the Taliban do the US bidding, the former is very likely to not only get formally recognised by Washington and its allies but also start receiving financial and political support from the Western world. In such a scenario, the US would be able to ally with the Taliban-led Afghanistan to checkmate China, Russia, Iran etc., in order to enhance its regional geopolitical interest (Hussain, 2019).

However, some analysts view US–Taliban ties, particularly the recognition issue, from the perspective of American domestic politics. An Afghan academic based at a university in Kabul opined:

No significant development on recognition will occur before [the] US presidential elections due next year. Usually in American presidential campaigns, issues such as human rights violations in [certain] regions are highlighted. Afghanistan may not be an exception. Hence, if Biden [administration] recognizes the Taliban before the election, it will be criticized by the [Republican] opposition. (T. Peerzada, personal communication, July 11, 2023)

As indicated above, the contours of American electoral politics are also crucial factors that situationally affect foreign policy outlook of the United States. Hence, it seems quite tangible that the Taliban would rather wait for the electoral outcome of the upcoming American presidential election if the regime intends to make a rapprochement with Washington for political and financial purposes.

US–Afghanistan Confrontation

The first proposed scenario is not without its challenges. The Taliban’s growing ties with China and Russia are affecting the course of relations with the US. Indeed, China not only sent its diplomats to Kabul post-US withdrawal but also accepted the credential of the Afghanistan ambassador, Bilal Karimi, to China in January 2024. Though China has not recognised the Taliban regime formally, yet bilateral ambassadorial appointments are significant developments (Kumar, 2024). In this respect, a Kabul-based political observer argued:

The Unites States of America does not want the relationship between China and Taliban to become better and stronger. America knows that the emergence of China is a threat to its interest and hegemony in the region. Therefore, China’s presence in Afghanistan could be a danger for national interests of the US. Since the United States wants to maintain its regional and global hegemony, it tends to pressurize the Taliban for not getting closer to China. Even, Taliban’s working with Russia is not liked by the American [policymakers]. (N. Babakarkhail, personal communication, June 21, 2023)

As the above highlights, the US is wary of the Taliban’s growing ties with both China and Russia. The latter are seen by the regime as potential sources of humanitarian and economic assistance for a conflict-ridden and starvation-stricken country. According to the World Food Programme report, 15.3 million Afghans faced food insecurity in 2023, whereas some 4 million people remained acutely malnourished. The report further claimed that around 28.2 million Afghans needed multi-sectoral humanitarian assistance in 2023 (WFP, 2023). In addition, some Afghan academics and journalists are seemingly pessimistic about any significant improvement in US–Taliban relations in the coming days due to American foreign policy calculations. One Afghan journalist posited:

[The] US wants to keep Taliban under its pressure through the recognition technique. Through this, they [Biden administration] would continue to pressure Taliban to cut ties with China and Russia and, above all, refrain from establishing ties with any other country that harms American interests…[And] once the Taliban are recognized by the US, it is very possible that many other countries will also recognize the Taliban rule…In the post-recognition scenario, the Taliban would become more independent and somehow free from the US pressure…Therefore [the] US wants to keep some sort of pressure on Taliban for which recognition is being used as a tool. (S. Habibullah, personal communication, July 2, 2023)

As the foregoing indicated, the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is maintaining informal but cordial ties with China and Russia—the two major powers that the US views as its strategic and commercial rivals in the region. If the Taliban choose not to abide by the Doha agreement in terms of inclusive government, intra-Afghan dialogue, counterterrorism and removing restrictions on women education—and in the meantime the regime consolidates its relations, however informal, with Beijing and Moscow in the coming months, such a policy (dis)course would further antagonise the US–Afghanistan relations. However, in this scenario, the Taliban’s topmost priority would be to accrue economic and financial benefits from China, Russia and key Central Asian states. Arguably, due to the Russia–Ukraine war, Moscow is not in a position to aid the regime financially. However, the Chinese authorities seem interested in exploring business and investment opportunities in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, owing to the prevailing humanitarian and energy crises coupled with political and security uncertainty in Afghanistan, China may not aid the regime financially beyond a point, though the former is likely to diplomatically engage with the Taliban in order to secure its security interests vis-à-vis Xinjiang.

Under this scenario, where the Taliban keeps stable ties with China and Russia, the US, however, is likely to get tough on the regime in terms of further sanctioning the regime financially and vetoing any China and/or Russia-led effort to assist Afghanistan in the United Nations. In addition, the US may also opt for unilateral military action, that is, drone attacks, on selected targets in order to counter terrorist threats to its regional interests. Pakistan would have its work cut out if this scenario materialises because the former is economically dependent on both China and the US.

Regime Change

There is a third scenario where the US would prefer regime change in Afghanistan in case the former has tangible evidence of the Taliban’s involvement or the use of its soil in any future terrorist attack(s) on American soil. This could be treated as another 9/11 by the hardliners within American society, political parties, the military and the media. Since the US is preoccupied with counterterrorism in, for example, the Middle East—and has targeted al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan—its reaction to a future terror attack on its land could be massive and mightier. Given its advanced military capabilities, the US has the capacity to either dislodge the regime militarily, as it did in the wake of 9/11, or support the anti-Taliban forces such as the former Northern Alliance and/or anti-Taliban Pashtun and other ethnic groups.

In such a scenario, regional countries, such as Pakistan, are likely to situationally do the US bidding due to their financial dependence on the US-led Western countries and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, it is pertinent to posit that the regime change through military means would not be advantageous for Washington, despite this belief among some American officials that they could strike against any security threat posed by Afghanistan through the policy of ‘over the horizon’ (Jones, 2022). Arguably, it is implausible that the Taliban, who resisted the US military involvement in Afghanistan for 20 years, would not react to such an adventure. Ultimately, the use of military means, on the part of the US, would result in socio-ethnic chaos, bloodshed, more terrorism, humanitarian and refugee crises and, above all, another civil war—where the Taliban might again emerge as a contender for power.

Conclusion

The United States has, in the past three years, urged the Taliban regime to comply with the Doha agreement in terms of forming an inclusive government through intra-Afghan dialogue and not letting its land be used for harbouring terrorism against American interests in the West Asian region by non-state actors such as IS-K. However, the Taliban regime chose not to do the US bidding due to its own strategic and political interests. Indeed, post-withdrawal, the regime seemed to have gained strategic confidence in terms of determining the ideological and strategic-military contours of the state and society in complete disregard for the Doha accord as well as Western concerns regarding an inclusive governing mechanism and counterterrorism. Moreover, the Biden administration has repeatedly communicated to the Taliban regime to respect human rights, allow girls education and provide job opportunities to the women, but in vain. On these counts, too, the regime disregarded American concerns owing to divergent interests and priorities. Being religiously inspired, the Taliban carry a puritan mindset, which is reflected in their faith and cultural policies. Hence, despite the US’ policy concerns and public statements to find avenues for rapprochement, as analysed in this article, the Taliban acted antagonistically and, thus, failed to obtain (in) formal recognition from the US and its European allies.

In addition, to predict the future course of interaction between the US and the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, the study explored three scenarios based on empirical data, which included interviews with Afghan stakeholders. In the first scenario, there is a likelihood of US–Afghanistan cooperation if the Taliban do the US bidding in terms of implementing the Doha agreement, that is, the formation of an inclusive government through intra-Afghan negotiations. In this case, the Taliban regime is very likely to not only get formally recognised by the US and its allies but also receive financial and political support from the Western world. On its part, the US would be able to checkmate China, Russia, Iran, etc. in collaboration with the Taliban.

In the second scenario, the Taliban opt not to comply with the Doha agreement and continue to consolidate relations, however informal, with China and Russia in the coming months. However, such policy behaviour would further jeopardise US–Afghanistan relations. In this scenario, the Taliban’s topmost priority would be to accrue economic benefits from China, Russia and key Central Asian countries. Arguably, however, owing to the Russia–Ukraine war, Moscow would not be in a financial position to aid the regime beyond a point. China, nonetheless, seems interested in exploring business and investment opportunities in Afghanistan. Due to the prevailing humanitarian and energy crises coupled with political and security uncertainties in Afghanistan, it could be challenging for China to aid the regime financially, though the former is likely to diplomatically engage with the Taliban in order to safeguard its security interests in Western China. In this scenario, the US, however, is likely to get tough on the regime through economic sanctions and veto Afghanistan’s entry into international organisations, such as the United Nations.

In the third scenario, the US would prefer regime change in Afghanistan in case the former is attacked by either elements from within the Taliban regime or its ideological and strategic partners, such as TTP or Al-Qaeda. Post-9/11, the American state and society have become quite sensitive about (suicide) terrorism. Indeed, the Biden administration has already killed al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan. Given its advanced military capabilities, the US has the capacity to either dislodge the regime directly through invasion as happened after 9/11, or assist anti-Taliban groups, such as the former Northern Alliance and/or anti-Taliban Pashtun and other ethnic groups, both militarily and financially.

In such a scenario, regional countries such as Pakistan are likely to situationally do the US bidding due to its financial dependence on US-led Western countries and institutions such as the IMF. However, it is pertinent to posit that the regime change through military or proxy means would not be advantageous for Washington, despite the belief among some American officials that they could strike against any security threat posed by Afghanistan through the policy of ‘over the horizon’ (Jones, 2022). Arguably, it is implausible that the Taliban, who resisted US military involvement in Afghanistan for 20 years, would not react to such an adventure. Ultimately, the use of military means, on the part of the US or its proxy, is very likely to result into socio-ethnic chaos, bloodshed, more terrorism, humanitarian and refugee crises and, above all, another civil war—where the Taliban might again emerge as a contender for power.

Finally, as policy measures, this study recommends dialogue between the US and the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. In hindsight, the Doha agreement was a by-product of negotiations between the US and the Taliban. To resolve policy differences, the said actors ought to engage diplomatically. In this respect, the good office of a third party, that is, Qatar, could also be availed. Peace, strategic stability and socio-economic prosperity can only be realised in the South Asian region when conflicts are resolved through peaceful means.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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