Afghanistan: To help a regime or a people, the Western dilemma

The international community no longer knows what to do with Afghanistan. Three years after retaking power in Kabul, the Taliban regime has continued its policy of erasing women from society, reducing them to silence and social invisibility. This rural, nationalist theocracy pays no heed to the world’s recriminations and condemns outside interference.

The great global powers, the UN and its regional neighbors are divided on the attitude to adopt toward the Afghan Islamists. Some have limited themselves to solely providing humanitarian aid, others have argued that the country’s development should be supported, and the most accommodating have maintained polite relations, all without taking the major step of granting official recognition.

The US, after its chaotic departure from Kabul in the summer of 2021, had initially cut diplomatic and security ties with those who had driven it out. Then, discreetly, Washington resumed intermittent dialogue with the Taliban. Since then, relations have stabilized. American authorities seem to consider that consolidating ties with the Islamist regime is not just a matter of security, but also of regional influence.

In fact, on the financial level, Washington has never dropped Kabul. At the end of July, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), tasked by Congress with overseeing the use of American funds, reported that the United States “has appropriated or otherwise made available $20.71 billion [€18.5 billion] in assistance” since the withdrawal of its forces. This figure includes humanitarian and development aid, care for Afghan refugees, and the Afghan state’s assets, which had been frozen by Washington and, at the end of 2022, transferred to the Afghan Fund – a fund created by the US treasury department to stabilize the country’s currency. The Taliban’s sworn enemy remains its biggest donor.

American diplomatic shift

For the time being, however, the Americans have no intention of re-establishing a foothold in Kabul – unlike the Chinese, Russian, Central Asian or certain Gulf states’ diplomatic corps. Meetings between Washington diplomats and Taliban leaders take place in Doha, Qatar. No contracts have been signed, either, as they have with Beijing, for the processing of extracted raw materials; or with Iran or Russia, for the organization of regional trade conferences. Nevertheless, neither Beijing nor Moscow, nor even Islamabad, the Taliban’s historically close neighbor, have officially recognized the Kabul regime.

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