How Biden Helped Hardliner Raisi Win the Iran Election

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies June 24, 2021 Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies Admin, Archives, Asia, West Asia

Joe Biden (left) and Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi / credit: Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, Mehr News Agency

It was common knowledge that a U.S. failure to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, before Iran’s June presidential election would help conservative hard-liners to win the election. Indeed, on Saturday, June 19, conservative Ebrahim Raisi was elected as the new president of Iran.

Raisi has a record of brutally cracking down on government opponents and his election is a severe blow to Iranians struggling for a more liberal, open society. He also has a history of anti-Western sentiment and says he would refuse to meet with President Biden. And while current President Hassan Rouhani, considered a moderate, held out the possibility of broader talks after the United States returned to the nuclear deal, Raisi will almost certainly reject broader negotiations with the United States.

Could Raisi’s victory been averted if President Biden had rejoined the Iran deal right after coming into the White House and enabled Rouhani and the moderates in Iran to take credit for the removal of U.S. sanctions before the election? Now we will never know.

Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement drew near-universal condemnation from Democrats and arguably violated international law. But Biden’s failure to quickly rejoin the deal has left Trump’s policy in place, including the cruel “maximum pressure” sanctions that are destroying Iran’s middle class, throwing millions of people into poverty, and preventing imports of medicine and other essentials, even during a pandemic.

U.S. sanctions have provoked retaliatory measures from Iran, including suspending limits on its uranium enrichment and reducing cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Trump’s, and now Biden’s, policy has simply reconstructed the problems that preceded the JCPOA in 2015, displaying the widely recognized madness of repeating something that didn’t work and expecting a different result.

JCPOA talks held July 14, 2015. From left to right: Foreign ministers/secretaries of state Wang Yi (China), Laurent Fabius (France), Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Germany), Federica Mogherini (EU), Mohammad Javad Zarif (Iran), Philip Hammond (UK), John Kerry (USA) / credit: Bundesministerium für Europa, Integration und Äusseres

If actions speak louder than words, the U.S. seizure of 27 Iranian and Yemeni international news websites on June 22, based on the illegal, unilateral U.S. sanctions that are among the most contentious topics of the Vienna negotiations, suggests that the same madness still holds sway over U.S. policy.

Since Biden took office, the critical underlying question is whether he and his administration are really committed to the JCPOA. As a presidential candidate, Biden promised to simply rejoin the JCPOA on his first day as president, and Iran always said it was ready to comply with the agreement as soon as the United States rejoined it.

Biden has been in office for five months, but the negotiations in Vienna did not begin until April 6. His failure to rejoin the agreement upon taking office reflected a desire to appease hawkish advisers and politicians who claimed he could use Trump’s withdrawal and the threat of continued sanctions as “leverage” to extract more concessions from Iran over its ballistic missiles, regional activities and other questions.

Far from extracting more concessions, Biden’s foot-dragging only provoked further retaliatory action by Iran, especially after the assassination of an Iranian scientist and sabotage at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, both probably committed by Israel.

Without a great deal of help, and some pressure, from the United States’ European allies, it is unclear how long it would have taken Biden to get around to opening negotiations with Iran. The shuttle diplomacy taking place in Vienna is the result of painstaking negotiations with both sides by former European Parliament President Josep Borrell, who is now the European Union’s foreign policy chief.

The sixth round of shuttle diplomacy has now concluded in Vienna without an agreement. President-elect Raisi says he supports the negotiations in Vienna, but would not allow the United States to drag them out for a long time.

An unnamed U.S. official raised hopes for an agreement before Raisi takes office on August 3, noting it would be more difficult to reach an agreement after that, according to an Axios report. But a State Department spokesman said talks would continue when the new government takes office, implying that an agreement was unlikely before then.

Even if Biden had rejoined the JCPOA, Iran’s moderates might still have lost this tightly managed election. But a restored JCPOA and the end of U.S. sanctions would have left the moderates in a stronger position, and set Iran’s relations with the United States and its allies on a path of normalization that would have helped to weather more difficult relations with Raisi and his government in the coming years.

If Biden fails to rejoin the JCPOA, and if the United States or Israel ends up at war with Iran, this lost opportunity to quickly rejoin the JCPOA during his first months in office will loom large over future events and Biden’s legacy as president.

If the United States does not rejoin the JCPOA before Raisi takes office, Iran’s hard-liners will point to Rouhani’s diplomacy with the West as a failed pipe-dream, and their own policies as pragmatic and realistic by contrast. In the United States and Israel, the hawks who have lured Biden into this slow-motion train-wreck will be popping champagne corks to celebrate Raisi’s inauguration, as they move in to kill the JCPOA for good, smearing it as a deal with a mass murderer.

If Biden rejoins the JCPOA after Raisi’s inauguration, Iran’s hard-liners will claim that they succeeded where Rouhani and the moderates failed, and take credit for the economic recovery that will follow the removal of U.S. sanctions.

On the other hand, if Biden follows hawkish advice and tries to play it tough, and Raisi then pulls the plug on the negotiations, both leaders will score points with their own hard-liners at the expense of majorities of their people who want peace, and the United States will be back on a path of confrontation with Iran.

While that would be the worst outcome of all, it would allow Biden to have it both ways domestically, appeasing the hawks while telling liberals that he was committed to the nuclear deal until Iran rejected it. Such a cynical path of least resistance would very likely be a path to war.

On all these counts, it is vital that Biden and the Democrats conclude an agreement with the Rouhani government and rejoin the JCPOA. Rejoining it after Raisi takes office would be better than letting the negotiations fail altogether, but this entire slow-motion train-wreck has been characterized by diminishing returns with every delay, from the day Biden took office.

Neither the people of Iran nor the people of the United States have been well served by Biden’s willingness to accept Trump’s Iran policy as an acceptable alternative to Obama’s, even as a temporary political expedient. To allow Trump’s abandonment of an Obama-brokered agreement to stand as a long-term U.S. policy would be an even greater betrayal of the goodwill and good faith of people on all sides.

Biden and his advisers must now confront the consequences of the position their wishful thinking and dithering has landed them in, and must make a genuine and serious political decision to rejoin the JCPOA within days or weeks.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood On Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

Azov Battalion volunteers in Kyiv, Ukraine / credit: EPA/TASS/Sergey Dolzhenko

Ukraine: The Tip of the Spear for the Imperialist Project

Ajamu Baraka February 14, 2022 Ajamu Baraka Admin, Archives, Europe

Editor’s Note: This is based on a presentation the author gave during a February 6 webinar, “U.S./NATO Aggression at the Russian Border. No War with Russia.” The event was a conversation between Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. activists the United National Antiwar Coalition had organized.

We have serious concerns that the accelerated drive to militarization and war by the United States and its allies dramatically unfolding with the crisis in Ukraine might very easily escalate to the point that it could threaten global humanity.

In their mad drive to advance their geostrategic interests to the detriment of everyone else—the Democratic Party version of “America First”—the Biden administration willfully violates all of the core principles of international relations and law. The respect for national sovereignty, the prohibition against threatening other members of the United Nations with military actions, non-intervention and adherence to international law are not recognized by the United States, which sees itself as an exception to the rule of law.

The manufactured crisis in Ukraine is just the latest episode of the reckless and delusional drama that the United States is involved in to attempt to maintain hegemony in conditions that have fundamentally changed. That is why contextualizing Ukraine as another example of why a global anti-war and anti-imperialist movement is so vitally important.

As long as the commitment to “Full Spectrum Dominance” remains bipartisan policy, today, it’s Ukraine. But tomorrow, it is certain to be another nation, another issue that will require a response from the peoples of the world.

As stated in the final declaration of the Fourth Canada-United States-Mexico Trilateral Peace Conference in Moca, Dominican Republic, held in September 2018, there must be a firm and principled commitment on the part of peace and anti-imperialist organizations that “peace must be based on the principles of non-intervention and full respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, self-determination and independence of all states, as stipulated in the United Nations Charter and covenants of international law enacted since the end of the second imperialist war known as World War II.”

Yet, the web of global U.S. command structures—with over eight hundred military bases—NATO as the largest military alliance in the world; illegal, draconian sanctions; and political subversion through coups makes national sovereignty impossible. The illegal and unilateral actions by the United States and its allies represents a constant threat to international peace and perpetuates a lawless, international Hobbesian state of nature.

So, while it is quite clear how we got to this moment with the situation in Ukraine, the challenge for the anti-war, pro-peace movement—and more specifically for the anti-imperialist organizations and movements in the United States and Europe—is to ground our understanding of the driving force and objective interests responsible for where the international community is at this moment.

For the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) the common enemy is the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination. We argue that we must center our analysis within the context of the global class struggle—a struggle sharpened by the ongoing and irreconcilable contradictions of the global colonial-capitalist system.

That is important because if we do not identify the real, concrete material forces, we can find ourselves struggling against shadows, instead of against the corporeal reality of an alliance of states dedicated to advancing their interests to the detriment of everyone else.

It is imperialism, led by the United States, that is the culprit. Its parasitic imperialist domination would be impossible without its core instrument of enforcement and control: State violence. That is why we are discussing Ukraine today.

Imperialism: That is framework. Today, it is Ukraine. Tomorrow, it might be China. Why? Because with the seemingly sudden and spontaneous crisis that emerged with Ukraine, the steady, violent, oppressive and repressive relations of power between the United States and Western capital and the rest of humanity continues. Objective reality bears this out. While we are focused on Ukraine as the most immediate danger, the people of Afghanistan are starving, bombs are still dropping in Yemen, coups are unfolding in Africa, the United States is still pivoting to Asia, and the peoples and nations of Latin America and the Caribbean are still suffocating from the predatory weight of the U.S. hegemon.

When we remind ourselves that the doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance animates U.S. foreign policies, we can disabuse ourselves of any illusions on what our historic task must be.

The drive for dominance has always been fueled by one objective: To position U.S. capitalist interests to be able to more effectively plunder the labor and resources of the peoples and nations of the world.

Is that not what is in play in eastern Europe? Is it not capitalist competition and its geostrategic implications that is driving events? Can we understand Ukraine, the role of NATO and the United States, without understanding the economic interests involved with Nord Stream 2 and the Eurasian Economic Union and even the Belt and Road Initiative? Was it a surprise that after being pushed out of Afghanistan, a crisis would emerge in Kazakhstan as the United States desperately tries to re-position itself in central Asia? That is why nothing short of the defeat of imperialism must be seen as our task.

There are significant points of resistance emerging from popular struggles that are moving us toward that task of building powerful international peoples’ movements:

Prohibition against nuclear weapons. January represented the one-year anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The TPNW came out of UN General Assembly resolution in July 2017. It represents the first legally binding agreement that comprehensively prohibits nuclear weapons with ultimate goal of total elimination. The treaty came into force January 22, 2021, after reaching the goal of fifty instruments of ratification or accessions. The Black Alliance for Peace was one of the first organizations to take up the work of publicizing the treaty as soon as it emerged from UN General Assembly in July of 2017.
We must work to abolish NATO. In a 1997 essay published by the New York Times, Kennan said, “Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era… Such a decision may be expected… to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.” But our concerns on NATO extend beyond the contradictions that NATO poses in Europe. For African peoples and other colonized peoples, NATO is correctly seen as an instrument of U.S. and European military domination. BAP actively campaigns to dismantle NATO and considers it an integral part of the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination. The international campaign to close U.S. and NATO bases and shut down the U.S. global command structures represents much needed international cooperation and coordination to bring attention to and build opposition to the global U.S. and NATO network of military bases and structures
Support movements for Zones of Peace. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) declared the Caribbean and Latin America to be a “Zone of Peace.” BAP is leading an effort to revive the civil society element of this state-centered declaration by popularizing the declaration and building popular support across the region.
Campaign against sanctions. There is a growing awareness of the devastating consequences of economic sanctions on the general population in those more than 30 nations that are under the illegal sanction regime of the United States and Europe. Coalitions like Sanctions Kill have been organizing to bring attention to this issue in the United States and globally.

The white supremacist, colonial-capitalist, patriarchal ruling classes of the United States and Europe are clear—even if we are not—that war and repression will be used with maximum efficiency to maintain their hegemony. Therefore, we can have no illusions: We must fight back, and we must win!

Every mobilization against illegal sanctions; subversion in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba; the global U.S. command structures and bases; mass incarceration in the United States; police killings; the murder of Palestinians; and the continued capitalist assault on Mother Earth have to be seen as part of our efforts to defeat the colonial-capitalist order—to fight imperialism, and the way we do that is to turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism!

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president of the United States on the Green Party ticket. Baraka is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and was awarded the U.S. Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and the Serena Shirm award for uncompromised integrity in journalism.

On September 10, sections of the second Nord Stream 2 pipeline laid from the German shore and Danish waters were connected in a so-called above-water tie-in in the Baltic Sea. The opposing pipe strings were lifted from the seabed by the lay barge, Fortuna, and the pipe ends were cut and fitted together. The welding to connect the two lines took place on a platform located above the water on the side of the vessel. Then the connected pipeline was lowered to the seabed as one continuous string / credit: Nord Stream 2 / Axel Schmidt

Pipeline Politics Hits Multipolar Realities: Nord Stream 2 and the Ukraine Crisis

John Foster February 16, 2022 John Foster Admin, Archives, Europe

Editor’s Note: This analysis originally appeared in Counterpunch.

Amid escalating tensions between U.S./NATO and Russia, all eyes are on Ukraine, but Nord Stream 2, a pipeline built to bring Russian gas under the Baltic Sea directly to Germany, is an integral part of the story.

U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland asserted (January 27), “If Russia invades Ukraine one way or another … we will work with Germany to ensure it (the pipeline) does not move forward.” Delayed by U.S. threats and sanctions, Nord Stream 2 highlights why countries are challenging U.S. leadership.

Since the 1960s when Europe first began importing Russian gas, Washington perceived Russian energy as a threat to U.S. leadership and Europe’s energy security. More recently, with fracking, the United States has become the world’s largest gas producer and a major exporter of LNG (liquefied natural gas). It wants to muscle in on Europe’s huge market, displacing Russian gas. With Nord Stream 2 completed and filled while it awaits German regulatory approval, the stakes are high.

Soon after pipeline construction began in 2018, the United States passed a law threatening sanctions on the Swiss ship laying the pipe. The Swiss pulled out and two Russian vessels completed the line despite sanctions. The United States threatened German contractors too, but Germany stood firm.

In 2021, with construction almost complete, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the White House, insisting on Nord Stream 2. U.S. President Joe Biden gave way. He wanted to mend relations with Germany—the European Union’s most powerful country.

Nord Stream 2, like its predecessor Nord Stream 1, began as a joint venture (51% Russia’s Gazprom, 49% Royal Dutch Shell as well as Austrian, French and German companies). Then Poland’s government agency responsible for monopoly regulation forced European partners to relinquish their share, creating another delay. The European companies gave up their shareholding but remained as equivalent financial investors in the pipeline.

Upon the Europeans relinquishing their shareholding, Gazprom became the sole pipeline owner. It is also the world’s largest gas supplier, with a gas pipeline monopoly in Russia. Gazprom wants to deliver its own gas via its pipeline to Europe. The EU, on the other hand, has maintained since 2009 that pipeline operators, in order to encourage market competition, cannot own the gas they carry. After construction of Nord Stream 2 began, the EU extended its rules to new marine pipelines originating abroad.

Nord Stream 2 was the only pipeline affected. While those pipelines completed prior to May 2019 were exempt, its completion was delayed by U.S. sanctions on pipelaying. Gazprom claimed discrimination and appealed. In August, a German court rejected the appeal. Gazprom then appealed to Germany’s Supreme Court.

German industrialists are desperate for Russian gas. Germany has only 17 days of gas supply in storage. Volatile short-term spot prices have compounded their woes. EU gas imports have increasingly shifted from long-term contracts with prices indexed to crude oil toward short-term deals by multiple traders in spot markets.

In 2020, spot prices were roughly half those of Gazprom’s long-term contracts. They surged as much as sevenfold in 2021, reflecting a mix of factors. On the demand side, economic revival from the pandemic boosted demand for gas in Asia as well as Europe. On the supply side, green sources of energy diminished in central Europe because of cloudy windless days. With the decommissioning of coal and nuclear power stations, utilities turned to natural gas.

European politicians blamed Russia for high gas prices, but Gazprom affirmed it was supplying the amounts stipulated in its long-term contracts. Gazprom wants long-term contracts to underpin the huge capital costs of gasfield and pipeline investments.

Russia is a petro-state. It’s the world’s single largest exporter of natural gas, and the second largest oil exporter—just behind Saudi Arabia. Pipelines and sea routes to market are vital to its economy. Russia wants to sell oil and gas in Asia and Europe, and they want to buy it. Nord Stream 2 makes commercial sense. It incurs no transit fees. The route to market is much shorter than aging pipelines via Ukraine. For its part, Ukraine depends on transit fees from gas shipped through these pipelines.

Nord Stream 2 remains controversial, bitterly opposed by Poland and Ukraine who presume it will reduce volumes and transit fees on pipelines through their countries. Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and others want it. Germany, which carries huge weight in the EU, sees gas as a transition fuel after phasing out nuclear and coal.

Numerous hurdles during and since construction have delayed Nord Stream 2’s certification. The most recent forced its Swiss operating company to form a German subsidiary for the pipeline section in German waters. Upon eventual certification, Germany will become Europe’s main entry point for Russian gas.

The current crisis between Russia and United States/NATO has been brewing for many years. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, NATO expanded membership to Eastern Europe. NATO facilitates U.S. leadership, keeping European countries on its side against Russia. From a Russian viewpoint, NATO is provocative and threatening.

Part of the agreement underpinning the USSR’s dissolution was Western assurance that it would not expand into Russia’s sphere of influence, a pledge NATO most recently violated by stationing troops, ships and planes along Russia’s borders. The West accuses Russia of interference in Ukraine. Russia points to a 2014 Western-inspired coup in Ukraine and legitimate grievances of Russian-speakers in the breakaway Donbass republics. I document the two narratives in my book Oil and World Politics.

In December, Russia presented draft treaties to the United States and NATO, demanding a complete overhaul of Europe’s security architecture. Russia stressed the principle of indivisible and equal security for all countries, as agreed by all 56 members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) at Istanbul (1999) and reaffirmed at Astana (2010). Members expressly agreed not to strengthen their security at the expense of other members’ security. The United States is a signatory.

President Putin warned that if the West continued its aggressive policies (NATO’s expansion and missile deployment in eastern Europe), Russia would take ‘military-technical’ reciprocal measures. He said, “they have pushed us to a line that we can’t cross.”

Russia’s initiative put the cat among the pigeons. A succession of high-level meetings occurred between Russia and the United States, NATO and OSCE. Washington presented written responses (January 26), seeking to narrow the debate to Ukraine and alleging the Russians were poised to invade it. Russia insisted repeatedly it would not initiate an invasion but would support Donbass if the latter were attacked.

The United States escalated tensions by repeating claims of an upcoming Russian invasion, even as Ukraine’s leaders expressed doubts. Washington threatened sanctions of unprecedented severity, including major Russian banks, high-tech goods, the SWIFT financial messaging system, and Nord Stream 2.

France and Germany balked because the sanctions would backfire on their economies. They appeared unconvinced Russia intended to attack unless provoked. A flurry of high-level bilateral discussions with Russia followed.

Significantly, representatives of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine (Jan 26) confirmed support for the 2015 Minsk II agreement and an unconditional ceasefire. Minsk II requires Ukraine to negotiate with the two Donbass republics on autonomy within a federalized Ukraine but, thus far, no negotiations have been held.

The EU imports 40 percent of its gas from Russia. For Russia, the routes through Ukraine and Poland are unreliable, because of hostility in both countries. Ukraine has a long-term deal with Gazprom for gas transit until 2024. Ukraine earns big transit fees, roughly $2 billion USD per year, and desperately wants to keep them. For its internal market, Ukraine buys Russian gas indirectly from Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

Whatever happens with Western sanctions, Russia has a strategic new market in China. Russia’s Power of Siberia pipeline began exporting gas from east Siberia to northeast China two years ago. The two countries have agreed to build a second line, Power of Siberia 2. It will bring gas from the Yamal peninsula in the Russian Arctic to China’s northeast. That means Yamal gas will be able to flow to China as easily as to Europe.

The current situation is dangerous and could easily escalate. Nord Stream 2 is critically important but national security trumps all. Security can only be achieved if it is universal. U.S. efforts to contain Russia and maintain leadership over Europe are not working. The world has become multi-polar and Nord Stream 2 is a fulcrum at the centre of the current crisis.

John Foster, international petroleum economist, is author of Oil and World Politics: the Real Story of Today’s Conflict Zones (Lorimer Books). He held positions with the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, BP and Petro-Canada. His blog johnfosterwrites.com and former TF guest editor Charlotte Dennett’s FollowthePipelines.com examine new issues.

Women in burqa in Kunduz City, Afghanistan / credit: Wanman uthmaniyyah on Unsplash

United States Outruns Regional States in Race for Kabul

M.K. Bhadrakumar February 9, 2022 M.K. Bhadrakumar Admin, Archives, Asia

Women in burqa in Kunduz City, Afghanistan / credit: <a href="https://unsplash.com/@wanman?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Wanman uthmaniyyah</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/afghanistan?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a> — Women in burqa in Kunduz City, Afghanistan / credit: Wanman uthmaniyyah on Unsplash

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

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