Deal with the Taliban carefully, invisibly
WASHINGTON — After two decades of war with the Taliban, how should the United States deal with the group now that it controls Afghanistan? As with the old joke about handling a porcupine, the answer is “very carefully.”
America has no alternative but to work with the Taliban in some way to protect U.S. interests. That was clear from the moment Kabul fell. The United States immediately opened a liaison channel with Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy leader, who has been operating as a kind of chief operating officer. This channel helped make possible the evacuation of 122,000 Afghans and Americans.
The Taliban badly wants official U.S. recognition for its new government and the legitimacy it would provide. Baradar pressed CIA Director William J. Burns to keep open the U.S. Embassy in Kabul when they met secretly on Aug. 23. The United States has so far refused this request, wanting to see a Taliban commitment to an inclusive government and human rights before it grants even tacit recognition.
America has leverage, for the moment. The Taliban will need U.S. and other Western support more as every week passes, and the country’s power, water and communications systems need maintenance. Afghanistan’s cash shortage will probably become acute, with the spigot of U.S. dollars suddenly turned off after 20 years. Food shortages, disease and refugee flight may become severe problems as the country heads toward winter.
History is a balance wheel. The Taliban fought tirelessly to expel America. Having won their war, they now — like the Vietnamese after their victory in 1975 — appear to want us (and our money and expertise) to remain, as civilians. We shouldn’t regard the Taliban as a permanent enemy, any more than the Vietnamese. But it’s on the Taliban’s leaders to show that they genuinely want and deserve American support, and that’s where it will get tricky.
Baradar is the Taliban official the United States knows best. He was the negotiating counterpart for special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad over the past three years in Doha, Qatar. But Baradar is the pragmatic, outward-looking face of the Taliban. Others will be much more difficult, starting with Haibatullah Akhundzada, a mullah and former religious judge who has been the Taliban’s top leader since 2016. A sign of his militancy is that he blessed his own son’s decision to be a suicide bomber in 2017.
Mohammed Noor, a fellow religious scholar, explained to U.S. diplomat Carter Malkasian in 2018 that Akhundzada’s decision to sacrifice his own son was “a signal to show he is serious about instituting Islam and Islamic law. He wants people to know that he supports harsh punishments and that women will be forced to be covered and go to segregated schools. He wants to show how he is determined that Afghanistan will be ruled solely under Islamic law,” according to an interview Malkasian cites in his new book, “The American War in Afghanistan: A History.”
The Taliban’s power on the battlefield has reflected this resolute militance, and it will probably persist even as it assumes responsibility for governance. Like many new governing groups, it may face an internal power struggle. But Malkasian notes, “Whatever their own set of rivalries … the Taliban were cohesive … The Taliban stood for what it meant to be Afghan. The Taliban embraced rule by Islam and resistance to occupation, values that ran thick in Afghan history and defined an Afghan’s worth.”
In this unyielding resistance to foreigners, the Taliban was heir to the Afghan fighters who rocked the British in three Afghan wars. A history compiled in 1920 by the British General Staff about operations against Pashtun tribal fighters explains: “The enemy fought with determination and courage which has rarely, if ever, been encountered by our troops in similar operations.”
An open embrace between America and the Taliban is unlikely, because of wariness on both sides. That’s why the right approach for now may be intelligence liaison.
Some of the CIA’s most successful operations have involved covert liaison with militant groups, such as the PLO in the 1970s, a relationship I described in my 1987 novel, “Agents of Innocence.” More recently, the CIA has worked closely with the intelligence services of Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and the Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq to combat terrorism. In dealing with the Taliban going forward, our relationships with Pakistan, Qatar and Turkey will be especially important.
What America offers in these clandestine partnerships is money, training and deep operational support. What it receives is the kind of intelligence that can protect the United States and its friends from terrorist attacks. If the Taliban behaves responsibly, America will reopen its embassy in Kabul before long. Until then, contact will be essential, but it should be largely invisible.