Editor’s Note: This analysis was produced in partnership by Indian Punchline and Globetrotter, which provided it to Asia Times.
In a hugely consequential advisory, the U.S. Treasury Department quietly signaled on February 2 that it was “tweaking” sanctions against Afghanistan’s Haqqani Network, a Sunni Islamist militant organization. International banks can now transfer money to the Taliban, including its affiliated Haqqani Network, without fear of breaching sanctions.
Washington simply issued clarifications dilating on the relaxation of sanctions announced in September and December for humanitarian work in Afghanistan. The banks can now process transactions related to humanitarian operations “including clearing, settlement, and transfers through, to, or otherwise involving privately owned and state-owned Afghan depository institutions.” (Author’s emphasis.)
Significantly, the Treasury Department specifically mentioned that the relaxed regime will include the Haqqani Network as well. This means that U.S. sanctions will no longer come in the way of foreign agencies signing agreements to provide aid, general aid coordination, including import administration, and sharing of office space with the Taliban or Haqqani Network.
The U.S. Treasury Department simply issued the advisory under a rubric, Frequently Asked Questions – Newly Added.
Logically, the next step will be to ensure that the United States would have a say in the Afghan economic policies under the Taliban. The downstream implications for the Taliban government’s fiscal management or decision-making vis-à-vis non-Western partners in development—for example, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the TAPI (Turkmenistan/Afghanistan/Pakistan/India) gas pipeline project and others—are at once obvious.
A convincing case is being made in this direction already by the U.S. government-funded think tank, the U.S. Institute of Peace, based in Washington.
A USIP analysis says:
“Although economic and humanitarian conditions in Afghanistan continue to deteriorate, the Taliban have taken some positive steps toward financial stability by publishing a fiscally responsible three-month and raising considerable amounts of domestic revenue – especially through customs duties, which have risen with a crackdown on corruption.
The international community urgently needs to get a better idea of how much the Taliban government is collecting and where budget resources are being spent, so as to ensure that the limited aid funds for delivering essential services are well spent…
U.S. government, other donors and especially the World Bank (which could be authorized to take the lead on this) urgently need to analyze data on Afghan government revenues and expenditures and assess the implications for effective deployment of aid, especially when it comes to assistance for public service delivery as opposed to purely humanitarian aid.”
Great Sense of Urgency
There is a great sense of urgency here that the discussions between the Taliban and U.S. representatives at the recent Oslo talks (January 23-25) be followed up speedily in the broad direction of engaging the government in Kabul. (See my article, “West finding ways to work with the Taliban,” Asia Times, January 28.)
Significantly, the Oslo deliberations were brusquely taken forward to the United Nations Security Council on January 26, where UN officials at Washington’s behest forcefully argued for the imperative of “engaging with the de facto authorities” in Kabul.
The UN officials are on record that their “premise is based on a presumed consensus that it is in no one’s interest to see a collapse of the current state in Afghanistan, but also that engagement with the Taliban can lead to progress along a negotiated pathway that delivers for the people of Afghanistan, the region and the rest of the world.”
And, therefore, “testing that hypothesis will be our task in the months ahead.”
India’s permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador T.S. Tirumurti, who briefed the Security Council in his capacity as chairman of the committee created pursuant to Resolution 1988 tasked with overseeing sanctions related to the Taliban (against Sirajuddin Haqqani, etc.), reportedly “explained that the goal is to facilitate conditions that promote dialogue and ultimately result in peace and stability.”
Tirumurti cautioned that the UN monitoring team has noted that the ties between the Taliban – largely through the Haqqani Network – and al-Qaeda and foreign terrorist fighters remain close and are based on ideological alignment.
Furthermore, the presence of Islamic State (ISIS) in Afghanistan remains a matter of concern, as terrorist attacks continue to be used to demonstrate power and influence.
Plainly put, the journey has begun to lift the sanctions against the Taliban leaders, including the Haqqanis. The UN officials dealing with Afghanistan are plowing the U.S. line to speed up the process.
Meanwhile, on February 2, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Dissatisfaction in High Places
It was a classified briefing. In a statement later, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, voiced dissatisfaction:
“We still face a lot of real challenges in Afghanistan even though our troop presence is gone … I would have liked to hear more details regarding the interagency planning process, nature of the terrorist threat in Afghanistan today, and their counterterrorism plans going forward.
We need to learn from our mistakes if we want to deter [US President Vladimir] Putin’s aggression in Europe or appropriately respond to Chinese economic and military aggression.”
Evidently, the geopolitics of Afghanistan is very much on everyone’s mind in the U.S. establishment. Unsurprisingly, Russia has voiced disquiet over the unseemly hurry in Washington to hustle the world community.
In a wide-ranging interview with Tass news agency this week, Russia’s presidential envoy on Afghanistan, Ambassador Zamir Kabulov, took the bull by the horns by cautioning that while there is an urgency to render humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan—for which the unblocking of frozen funds by Washington will make a critical difference—that should not be used as a diplomatic tool.
Kabulov recalled the conditions for recognition of the Taliban government. He also warned against the probability of resistance to Taliban rule among Afghans, while also offering Russian mediation for reconciliation (see here, here and here).
Kabulov’s remarks hint at disquiet in Moscow that Washington is manipulating the Taliban faction leaders by dangling in front of them the carrot of the lifting of sanctions.
However, Washington is unlikely to pay heed. The Taliban’s alienation with Pakistan has opened a window of opportunity, which must be seized. The U.S. has already spent more than a billion dollars to split the Taliban.
The Treasury Department advisory is a hurried step, which in effect erodes the UN sanctions regime against the Haqqani Network. Only the lawmakers in the U.S. Congress have been taken into confidence.
War Profiteers
The stakes are high. Reports have appeared that Erik Prince, the Pentagon’s infamous war contractor, recently visited Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The recent unrest in Kazakhstan highlighted Afghanistan’s potential to be the staging ground for outside powers to destabilize Central Asian states that border China, Russia and Iran.
Although the Taliban have denied involvement, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has been explicit in his remarks that foreign militants, mostly from Central Asian countries, including Afghanistan and also from the Middle East, participated in the unrest in Kazakhstan. Russia has endorsed Tokayev’s allegation (see here and here).
Interestingly, it was announced on February 2 that Kabul and Doha will be connected by direct flights. The U.S. personnel handling Afghan affairs, who are based in Qatar, can now travel frequently with ease to Kabul.
On January 31, U.S. President Joe Biden also announced his decision to nominate Qatar as a “major non-NATO ally”—a singular honor that Washington once bestowed on Pakistan as a frontline state.
“It does open up a full new range of opportunities: exercises, operations and you know, perhaps, the … acquisition of capabilities as well,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters, commenting on Biden’s decision.
Taken together, the regional states will be worried that the United States’ nascent engagement with the Taliban behind the fig leaf of humanitarian aid, which gathered momentum at the Oslo talks, enables the return of U.S. intelligence personnel to Afghanistan on the pretext of “counter-terrorism” operations.
M.K. Bhadrakumar is a former Indian diplomat. Follow M.K. Bhadrakumar on Twitter: @BhadraPunchline
