Two years after the chaotic but necessary U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan,
the country is no one's idea of a success story—neither for
Washington’s two-decade nation-building fiasco nor for the Taliban,
which established some semblance of a state after the American exit.
As DEFP Fellow Daniel R. DePetris details at Newsweek,
Afghanistan is in acute crisis, and dealing with the Taliban will be a
difficult but unavoidable task for Washington for the foreseeable
future.
Two years with the Taliban
- "Afghanistan has become one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with more than 28 million people—two-thirds of the population—in urgent need of humanitarian assistance." [HRW]
- "The women in Afghanistan are being slowly erased from society,
from life, from everything," said Afghan women's rights activist
Mahbouba Seraj. [CNN / Jessie Yeung et al.]
- The Taliban is responsible for "at least 218 extrajudicial
killings" of former members of the U.S.-backed Afghan government, the
U.N. reported Tuesday, contra a promise of amnesty. [NYT / Richard Pérez-Peña]
- "Afghanistan's gross domestic product has contracted by 35 percent
since 2021, with near universal poverty level," and "91 percent of
Afghan households surveyed said food was their top priority." [Newsweek / DePetris]
The task for Washington
- "No country has officially recognized the Taliban government as
legitimate," DePetris notes. But, in practice, "foreign embassies are
still operating on Afghan soil." [Newsweek / DePetris]
- These dealings with the Taliban aren't ideal, but they're inevitable—and sometimes effective in pursuit of U.S. security goals:
- For example, the Taliban pledged to keep Afghanistan from being
used as a base for anti-U.S. terror attacks, and "there hasn't been a
single anti-U.S. terrorist operation emanating from Afghanistan since
August 2021."
- "The U.S. will have no choice but to continue to collaborate with
the Taliban to ensure those commitments are implemented over the
long-term."
- And remember, prudent diplomacy doesn't preclude targeted counterterror operations. [Newsweek / DePetris]
- Moreover, as DePetris explored at greater length in an explainer for DEFP, "any U.S. attempts to harm the Taliban economically will harm the Afghan people."
- Removing U.S. sanctions on Afghanistan could improve humanitarian conditions in for ordinary Afghans. [DEFP / DePetris]
- Washington should also unfreeze Afghan assets which it has held
since the 2021 withdrawal, as the freeze has badly damaged the Afghan
economy but failed to shift Taliban behavior. [The Critic / Bonnie Kristian]
- Sanctions can always snap back, "but for now, the U.S. should
cooperate" on counterterrorism and to "reduce the suffering of
Afghans." [DEFP / DePetris]
- U.S. interaction with the Taliban could include formal diplomatic
recognition, as former Afghan Ambassador Javid Ahmad and former CIA
officer Douglas London argue at Foreign Policy—but as DePetris observes, Washington doesn't have to make a decision on that point to productively engage.
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