Beyond Deadlock

While international media attention is currently diverted to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the question of whether to engage with the Taliban’s de facto government remains a contentious topic actively deliberated in Western diplomatic circles. Rather than examining the merits of engaging (or not) with the Taliban, this Emerging Insights paper highlights the Taliban’s perceptions, agendas and modes of operation in order to gain a better understanding of how to move forward with the question of future engagement with the Taliban. The paper is specifically aimed at informing Western policymakers and is not intended to cover the wider spectrum of the Taliban’s perceptions of the external world, nor does it aim to analyse the group’s foreign policymaking. Thus, notwithstanding their undoubted importance, the paper does not cover the Taliban’s relations with Afghanistan’s neighbours.

INTRODUCTION

This paper is informed by recent research on the Taliban’s more than two years in government, supported by tens of meetings and interviews with Taliban officials and leaders, dating from well before August 2021 and up to the present day. Identities and all data emerging from these exchanges are either anonymised or unattributed, as specific sources cannot be identified.

The paper has two main sections. The first section discusses the Taliban’s perception of Western countries and the second outlines the Taliban agenda towards Western countries. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the implications for Western powers of engaging with the Taliban.

UNDERSTANDING THE TALIBAN PERCEPTION OF THE WEST

RESENTMENT AND SUSPICION

After more than two years of diplomatic negotiations and exchanges, the Taliban are sceptical about the value of engaging with the West. “We have had open discussion with many political figures over the past two years, diplomats and UN officials, but we see little progress as a result”, says one senior Taliban member. Still, this does not mean that the Taliban have given up on building bridges with the West – not yet. The Taliban recognises the Doha agreement of February 2020 as the main document regulating their relations with the US and by extension all Western countries, as the agreement refers to “the United States, its allies, and the Coalition”. Disagreements over the implementation of that agreement fuel Taliban distrust of the US and its allies – as well as US distrust of the Taliban. The US has repeatedly accused the Taliban of not having fully implemented the terms of the agreement, in particular with regard to their handling of groups linked to Al-Qaeda.

The Doha agreement was rather imprecisely worded, asking the Taliban not to allow “any of its members, other individuals or groups, including al-Qa’ida, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies”, to “prevent them from recruiting, training, and fundraising” and not to “host them” (note that the term “ally” lends itself to conflicting interpretations). It also asked the Taliban to “send a clear message that those who pose a threat to the security of the United States and its allies have no place in Afghanistan” and to “instruct members of the … Taliban not to cooperate with groups or individuals threatening the security of the United States and its allies”.

Perhaps more importantly, the US State Department is silent on whether the agreement still stands. The State Department has been vocal about the Taliban’s treatment of women and other rights issues, while gradually becoming more positive about the Taliban’s handling of foreign jihadists.

The Taliban responded that, according to the Doha agreement:

• The US was supposed to “initiate an administrative review of current U.S. sanctions and the rewards list against members of the … Taliban with the goal of removing these sanctions by August 27, 2020”, and that this did not happen.

• The US was further supposed to “start diplomatic engagement with other members of the United Nations Security Council and Afghanistan to remove members of the … Taliban from the sanctions list with the aim of achieving this objective by May 29, 2020”, and that this did not happen either.

• The US also committed to “refrain from the threat or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Afghanistan or intervening in its domestic affairs”. The Taliban claim is that the US is continually putting pressure on them on these matters.

The Taliban also argue that the freezing of National Bank funds violates the spirit of the Doha agreement, as does the fact that the US continues to fly drones over Afghanistan. Sources were keen to stress this point, and claimed that leaders in the Taliban felt intimidated by the continuous drone surveillance, which some of them took as a sign of US bad faith. Some leaders argue that this unfriendly behaviour plays into the hands of hardliners opposed to engaging with the West, pushing pragmatists to prioritise internal Taliban unity over efforts to marginalise the hardliners.

While there is a degree of defensiveness in evidence here, and there are other, perhaps more important, reasons why the hardliners gradually gained influence from September 2021, it is at least plausible that the more threatened the Taliban feel, and the more distrust towards Western countries there is within their ranks, the easier it will be for Taliban hostile to engaging with Western countries to impose their line.

After more than 20 years of war, the Taliban’s distrust of Western countries (and vice versa) comes as no surprise. But it is, nonetheless, one factor contributing to why Afghanistan’s de facto government has so far shown little to no interest in responding to calls by foreign governments and institutions for policy change – with the assumption being that such governments and institutions cannot be trusted to reward Taliban concessions in any substantial way. The Taliban maintain that the centrality of Sharia Law to their system of governance is non-negotiable, and they also have their own ways of determining which interpretation of Sharia Law applies in a given case, with the prime authority in the field resting with the Taliban’s Amir, Haibatullah Akhundzada (who is the leader of the Taliban movement but does not have a formal role in the Taliban government).

One noteworthy example of how Taliban distrust can have the effect of harming the Taliban themselves is the recent failure of the so-called “Doha II” meeting of 18 February 2024, when special envoys for Afghanistan gathered to discuss the report prepared by UN Special Coordinator Feridun Sinirlioğlu. Although the intention was to map a path towards the normalisation of relations, the Taliban interpreted the recommendation to appoint a UN special envoy for Afghanistan as an attempt to humiliate them. They also took exception to civil society representatives seemingly being accorded the same status as the Taliban at the meeting. Then, when it emerged that the UN Secretary-General would not chair the meeting with the Taliban, they took it as a snub (notwithstanding that Antonio Guterres could not meet the unrecognised de facto government in any case). Attempts to find an approach acceptable to the Taliban failed after the UN’s final proposal arrived too late for the Taliban’s slow policymaking arrangements, which required it to make the rounds between Kabul and Kandahar, gaining the acceptance of all the Taliban’s heavyweights. The end result was that the Taliban did not attend the meeting.

SENSITIVITIES ABOUT CRITICISM

The Taliban are especially proud of what they view as having achieved stability in Afghanistan and ending the very long war that began in 1978. State collapse, feared by many, has been averted and the Taliban have undoubtedly proven able to provide basic security. They consider this the main source of legitimacy of the new regime. Ordinary Afghans, they say, now enjoy the freedom to move around the country without risking their lives. “Many people have been able to visit their home villages for the first time in decades”, said one member. The Taliban also express irritation that among foreign diplomats there has either been no acknowledgement of their achievement of what they describe as the “neutralisation of the IS-K [Islamic State in Khorasan] threat” without external help, or, if the achievement is acknowledged, it is immediately undermined by what they see as a litany of complaints about the Taliban’s lack of respect for the rights of minorities and women. It seems clear that in the expectations of many Taliban, the group’s role in containing IS-K and averting state collapse should offset the other concerns of Western countries.

Taliban leaders and officials say that they appreciate receiving advice, but remark that “there is a big difference between advice given by your enemy and advice given by a friend”, implying that Western countries are not “friends”. These words from another senior member of the Taliban show how the distrust for Western countries is apparent:

What we don’t appreciate is when the West and in particular the US occupies the moral higher ground and start[s] issuing advice to the IEA [Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan] on issues of human rights and freedoms – as if we don’t see and hear about their practices in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world – look what is going on in Gaza as we speak.

The Taliban also harbour resentment about public criticism in the diplomatic arena:

When you advise someone with good faith, the advice and the way it is delivered must be peaceful and preferably confidential. One does it to receive reward from Allah and not to score goals or humiliate the other side. However, if the advice is public and confrontational, then the Taliban movement considers it offensive.

The Taliban’s extreme sensitivity to public criticism is hardly unique – most governments would be sensitive – but theirs is likely reinforced by the sense of insecurity derived from their lack of diplomatic training and relative lack of experience in navigating the diplomatic arena. An additional factor, perhaps even more important, is that in the constant intra-Taliban tussle over competing foreign policy lines, Taliban interlocutors with Western countries feel humiliated by external criticism, which they believe undermines them in the eyes of their more sceptical colleagues.

Conversely, the Taliban are often thirsty for Western appreciation. The July to October 2023 World Bank reports, for example, were greatly appreciated by some Taliban for their positive assessment of the financial and economic trends in Afghanistan. This illustrates how the Taliban – particularly the pragmatists among them – value acknowledgement and commendations. They interpreted the reports as a sign of political appreciation and as a rare piece of evidence of external appreciation that they can show to their more isolationist colleagues.

Diverging foreign policy views among the Taliban could explain why, at a surface level, the Taliban have appeared resistant to taking advice from any source, Western or otherwise, public or private. Individual Taliban leaders and groups within the Taliban are reported by their colleagues to be willing to listen to advice from different sources – Qatar, the UAE, China or even in some cases the CIA – but contradictory pieces of advice tend to offset each another, resulting in little movement in policy terms.

WHY THE TALIBAN THINK THEY NEED TO ENGAGE WITH THE WEST

The Taliban tend to deny courting external support, while at the same time seeking it in certain circumstances. For example, senior Taliban contacted for this paper say that the main reason for the April 2022 ban on the cultivation, production and trade of drugs was awareness of the devastation that hard drugs were bringing to Afghanistan itself, as well as the fact that Sharia Law bans the consumption of narcotics. However, the desire for external support is evident when they suggest, to one of the authors but also to foreign diplomats, that help in dealing with the large quantity of drug addicts in the country and providing alternative livelihoods to opium farmers would be welcomed.

The Taliban also argue that consolidating an improved security situation depends on “improving people’s livelihoods and in particular new employment opportunities for young men from rural areas”, as a senior figure put it to one of the authors. The need for economic progress in Afghanistan is one of the main rationales for external engagement in the eyes of the Taliban. However, there is little readiness to accept trade-offs that might include what many Taliban consider external interference in their internal decision-making. The Taliban are, nevertheless, beginning to implement plans to open Afghanistan’s mining sector to investment, not least to encourage Western investment to counterbalance the expected heavy Chinese investment in the Afghan economy.

THE TALIBAN’S AGENDA

TALIBAN RIGIDITIES AND SOME EVOLUTION

There is no question that the Taliban suffer from multiple rigidities in their policymaking. Some of these may be “ideological rigidities”, either genuine ones embedded in the Taliban’s origins, or ones rooted in the fear of being overtaken by more extreme groups. Others may have more to do with power struggles and internal competition among groups and leaders. Others still may be understood simply as a demonstration of sovereignty, a result of the Taliban’s desire to show that they are in charge.

For example, Taliban pragmatists and modernists claim that the suspension of women’s and girls’ education, in high schools in September 2021 and in universities in December 2022, is the result of pressures from a minority group of ultra-conservative leaders, mostly concentrated in Kandahar, who genuinely believe that previous arrangements were not compliant with Sharia Law, and who have the support of the Amir. This is despite the fact that the policy is rather unpopular, even among Taliban themselves. Many Taliban officials say they do not take very seriously the view of figures such as Justice Minister Abdul Hakim Haqqani, who believe that jihad (intended as “mobilisation for struggle”) should continue until the establishment of a fully Islamic order – that is, a system of government very rigidly based on an institutionalised version of the Taliban’s understanding of Islam. For them, the jihad ended the moment Kabul fell in August 2021. However, even these Taliban justify the implementation of such policies with another ideological statement: that revolt against the “legitimate Amir” without “legitimate justification” (which can only be the Amir’s disbelief in Allah) is not permissible under Sharia Law. The Amir must, therefore, be obeyed even when he is “unjust”. Importantly, obedience to the Amir is also seen as key to the Taliban’s unity and, as one member explains, “our success rests on staying united”.

In other areas, Taliban have claimed that some policy decisions were dictated less by their own convictions than by the desire to counter propaganda claims from IS-K that the Taliban have sold out to the West. This could of course be an excuse to justify policy shifts that many Taliban officials might find it difficult to justify otherwise, such as the suspension of women’s rights to education. There are, nonetheless, cases where this perceived vulnerability might have genuinely contributed to reshaping policy. In interviews with low-level officials of the Taliban Emirate in 2021–23, the Taliban clearly appeared to be concerned about some of their disgruntled members being attracted to IS-K. One example of this potentially having influenced policy is the decision to fully apply Sharia Law in criminal matters and the growing rigidity shown towards the Shia community from summer 2023 onwards, as Taliban failure to implement Sharia Law and the group’s courteous relations with the Shia community had been two key points of IS-K propaganda.

Assessing the role of ideology in Taliban policymaking also requires consideration of the issue of intra-Taliban competition. While there are certainly many ultra-conservative ulema (senior clerics) within the Taliban, it is far from clear that the Amir is ideologically aligned with them. His record in 2016–21 was eminently pragmatic – see, for example, his willingness to accept Russian support for the Taliban in 2016, at the peak of the Russian intervention in Syria, despite widespread opposition within the leadership. This raises the issue of to what extent the Amir may be using the fatwas of his ulema to undermine those Taliban leaders who try to bypass his authority, including by reaching out to Western diplomats without his consent (as happened repeatedly in 2021–22). It is worth noting that, typically, suspensions of girls’ education rights came within days of meetings between Taliban officials and Western diplomats.

Whatever is driving these rigidities, they are primarily endogenous factors that have had a major impact on how the Taliban interact with the rest of the world, even though they primarily concern the Emirate’s internal affairs. Evolution, or softening, is not impossible, however. The Taliban’s cautious approach towards foreign jihadists based in Afghanistan is an example. In the face of obvious IS-K attempts to attract foreign jihadists away from the Taliban, the Emirate was unwilling to put more than moderate pressure on the Pakistanis of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), despite very strong demands from Islamabad. The reason appears clear: the TTP’s thousands of fighters could destabilise eastern Afghanistan if they allied with IS-K. However, the Emirate placed the much smaller Uighur and Uzbek jihadist contingents under strict surveillance and then forced them to relocate, estimating that the damage caused by defections to IS-K would be limited, and aiming to win praise from Beijing and Tashkent.

There are other examples. In September 2023, the Taliban responded to an incident in Sweden in which the Qur’an was burned by freezing all Swedish aid activities. One Taliban member commented:

It may not have been sanctioned by the government, [but] the only option for us is to sanction all Swedish activities. Having done that, we have done our very best to protect the property and personnel of Swedish aid organisations in the country, but we cannot go against the will of the Afghan people who feel badly hurt as a result of [this incident].

More recently, however, the Taliban have taken care not to be seen as promoting mobilisation in favour of Hamas in Gaza, for example, despite the issue being strongly felt by many within their ranks. This can probably be read as a signal to the West. Overall, the impression is of a Taliban leadership that is juggling its political capital, combining a rigid approach on some ideological issues related to internal affairs with considerable pragmatism on other issues, especially those related to the prospects of economic growth. They appear to have judged that dropping any kind of support for jihadist movements abroad will not hurt or impact them much, except in the case of the TTP in Pakistan.

It is important to note, moreover, that despite their rigidities the Taliban do have a track record of sometimes responding positively to lobbying from NGOs, tribal and local elders, and even neighbouring countries – although at the centre, the rigidities appear harder to negotiate. Low-profile, discreet messaging appears to be more effective in influencing Taliban policymaking, while public statements, threats and ultimatums are generally rejected.

TALIBAN UNDERSTANDINGS OF INCLUSION

Greater inclusion of a variety of ethnic, religious and political groups in the Taliban government is a key demand not only of Western countries, but also of most neighbouring countries. When the Taliban are asked about inclusion today, they defend themselves by noting that their critics did not seem concerned with inclusion when the Taliban were entirely purged from the state apparatus in 2001. In comparison, they argue, the Taliban’s de facto government has at least retained most officials from the previous regime, such that the ministerial machinery mostly continues to function in the same way as before. In fact, junior officials were largely retained, while senior-level managers have been replaced, which leaves the issue of inclusiveness to a large extent unaddressed. The Taliban say that they are even retaining officials once linked to parties opposed to the Taliban, and that they make every effort to pay the salaries of officials on time (albeit at a considerably reduced rate), while many members of the Taliban themselves experience major delays. There is evidence that civilian officials do get paid, while, according to interviews, salaries to Taliban in the armed forces are often paid irregularly.

With regard to specific communities, Taliban perceptions often represent an obstacle to a more inclusive government. The Taliban are dismissive about the possibility of ethnic tensions, both within Afghanistan and among the Taliban themselves. Sources quoted Interior Minister Serajuddin Haqqani’s assessment that “there are no racial and linguistic prejudices in the nation and the Islamic Emirate will not allow anyone to do this. People should be assured that there is full unity between the ethnic groups of Afghanistan”. Taliban with whom the authors met claimed to have recently defused conflict between Kuchi nomads and Hazara settlers in Behsud in Wardak province, and noted that they had recently invited Shia leaders, such as two of the most prominent leaders of Shia parties, Karim Khalili and Haji Mohaqeq, to return to Afghanistan. They seemed oblivious to the worsening of relations with the Shia community following clashes during Ashura observances in summer 2023, and to deteriorating relations between Pashtuns on one side and Uzbeks and Tajiks on the other, including among the Taliban themselves.

Ultimately, the Taliban consider any debate about the system of government to be settled. In their view, the Islamic Emirate – an authoritarian system with the Taliban movement at its centre – is the solution, and the so-called “hybrid system”, bringing together elements of the 1990s Emirate and the Islamic Republic or even the monarchy (which was abolished in 1973) – which was still being discussed in the weeks following the Taliban takeover – is no longer under consideration. In reality, however, the Emirate system remains poorly defined, especially with regard to the distribution of powers and governance. Nevertheless, the firmly held belief is that the Islamic Emirate system “served the Taliban well during two decades of war” and, in the words of one contact, the pragmatists find it “difficult to convince leaders that something else might be more suitable for peacetime”.

External demands to revisit this issue are considered interference in the internal affairs of the de facto government and are rejected. The Taliban acknowledge that lack of inclusiveness is still a problem, both in private and – more obliquely – in public. But they deny that there is any wish or intent on the part of the Taliban to discriminate against any particular ethnic group. Further, they intend to resolve this lack of inclusiveness in their own way: by incorporating individuals from different communities and rejecting the inclusion of organised groups. Actors such as former president Hamid Karzai and former CEO Dr Abdullah, who have been lobbying for greater political inclusiveness in Kabul, appear marginalised today. Political parties that were promised government positions immediately following the Taliban takeover, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i Islami, had all but lost hope by October 2022. As of January 2024, there was only a handful of non-Taliban individuals at the top levels of government. An exact head count is difficult, as some avowedly non-Taliban individuals may have entertained discreet relations with the Taliban in the past, as is alleged in relation to Minister of Commerce Nooruddin Azizi and the minister of health, Qalandar Ibad. There are also five deputy ministers with no confirmed links to the Taliban: Sheikh Madar Ali Karimi Bamyani (urban development and land), Abdul Latif Nazari (economy), Hassan Ghiasi (health), Mohammad Azim Sultanzada and Mohammad Bashir (commerce).

SEEKING ACCEPTANCE AS AN AUTHORITARIAN “PROBLEM SOLVER”

The Taliban are aware that much of the wider region is ruled by authoritarian governments. Hence it is likely that they feel there is no particular reason for their own authoritarian regime not to be accepted too.

Indeed, Taliban sources argue that their success in stabilising the Afghan economy derives from their “power to assert sovereignty” against local, factional, sectarian and tribal/ethnic interests. One example of this assertion of sovereignty, a senior figure explained, is the ban on the use of other currencies for trade within Afghanistan. The Taliban also point to their success in banning the production of drugs, including methamphetamine, as a sign of their ability to act as a result of their “assertion of sovereignty”. In other words, the Taliban believe they have demonstrated that their strong-handed approach works in their operating environment.

The difference between the conservatives and the pragmatists is that in the latter’s view, the Taliban will in practice need to tackle particular issues, such as gender discrimination and inclusiveness – at least to some degree – before achieving full international acceptance, gaining diplomatic recognition and obtaining external aid. The conservatives, on the other hand, believe that to gain international acceptance, the Taliban simply need to demonstrate staying power and the ability to keep Afghanistan together.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR ENGAGEMENT

The attitudes of Western countries towards engaging with the Taliban’s de facto government of Afghanistan vary, although a majority of governments now appear to favour some level of engagement, while staying away from formal recognition. Those governments favouring engagement must contend with:

• The Taliban’s notions about the West, and the context of mutual distrust and mutual flawed perceptions.

• The Taliban’s determination to retain the Emirate model of government.

• Diverging strategic views among Taliban leaders.

Distrust and misperceptions are inevitable after 20 years of war. One such misperception is about the degree to which the Taliban are being “ideological”. Some of what is usually viewed as ideological rigidity are in fact political tactics, which derive from the Taliban’s insecurity or from their internal power struggles.

A more substantial and probably more long-term issue is the fact that the Taliban have seemingly given up altogether on political inclusion, which remains a key demand of most Western and neighbouring countries. Similarly, the Taliban do not even try to portray themselves as anything other than authoritarian, and they make it clear that this is not going to change. Therefore, even if in future engagement is unlocked by progress on female education, this engagement will remain limited – especially compared to the billions of dollars of development aid Afghanistan received before 2021 – and so any impact will only be seen in the medium and long term, and will be diluted over time. Another hard reality, however, is that any collapse of the state in Afghanistan, or a deepening economic crisis, would drive hundreds of thousands more Afghans to migrate or seek asylum westwards. This raises the question of how wise it is for European countries to delay engagement.

Some positive signalling could be useful to keep doors open and to strengthen the position of those Taliban pragmatists who believe that good relations with Western countries are important for the de facto government. Without such positive signalling, the pragmatists would be left empty handed and condemned to gradual marginalisation. Even small steps could begin a virtuous cycle. For example, helping to address issues such as the refusal of international banks to process payments to and from Afghanistan would involve very little engagement and have disproportionate positive impact, enabling investment into the country. Projects aimed at encouraging or facilitating private investment could similarly improve the diplomatic environment, without necessarily undermining Western demands concerning rights.

An interesting test is the recent decision of the World Bank to unlock development funds for Afghanistan. The Taliban see this as a potential confidence-building measure. The question is whether Taliban policymakers in Kabul would then be able and willing to reciprocate, at least with some small, symbolic gesture, once funds began gradually translating into projects on the ground.

It is worth adding that at the Doha II meeting in February 2024, China, Russia and Iran all supported the Taliban’s rejection of the proposal for a special envoy to Afghanistan, clearly expecting to gain from the failed take-off of Taliban–West relations. It is not clear to what extent Western countries are concerned about the possibility of Afghanistan falling into the orbit of these neighbours, but if they are, this would be one more reason not to delay engagement.

Sultan Barakat is a Professor in Public Policy at Qatar Foundation’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University and an Honorary Professor at the University of York. He is also the Founding Director of the newly established Global Institute for Strategic Research (GISR).

Antonio Giustozzi is a Senior Research Fellow in the Terrorism and Conflict team at RUSI. He has been working in and on Afghanistan since the 1990s, and has published extensively on the conflict there, and especially on the Taliban and the Islamic State.