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This month, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) formally accepted, for the second time in its history, a Taliban regime as the valid in-power political actor in Kabul. The Taliban-run interim government of the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has had Badruddin Haqqani as placeholder representative in Abu Dhabi. While this recognition (of sorts) is a big diplomatic victory for the Taliban, questions remain on the reasons behind a now more public outreach with the Taliban regime by Abu Dhabi.

The UAE was one of the only three United Nations (UN) member states (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan being the other two) to recognise the Taliban between its first phase of rule, which lasted from 1996 until 2001 when the American invasion began in the aftermath of 9/11. For a long time after the fall of Kabul in August 2021, with the final United States (US) soldier leaving the country a few days later— marking a chaotic end to a chaotic and increasingly rudderless war—most states maintained a distance from the Taliban regime. The running argument was to see how the Taliban, an ideological insurgency at heart, will build a new political system that not only manages the population but also brings in the stability that the group pushed for.

 

"Abu Dhabi’s official recognition of a Taliban envoy reflects multiple realities that persist regionally and ideologically, and the Taliban today is ideally placed to take advantage of these geopolitical crevasses."

 

Three years since, regional powers such as the UAE, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Russia and China, amongst others, are looking to take a constructivist route with the Taliban, i.e., engagement with one foot in the door and the other foot out. Even India has been maintaining a ‘technical office’ in Kabul since 2022 and hosts direct flights between the capitals. Abu Dhabi’s official recognition of a Taliban envoy reflects multiple realities that persist regionally and ideologically, and the Taliban today is ideally placed to take advantage of these geopolitical crevasses.

Mobilising pragmaticism

The Taliban, over the past few months, have moved towards offering more clarity to the world on what their position is going to be, which in turn, gives more space to states for developing their own policies on how to deal with Kabul in the short to medium term. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the interim minister for interior, along with his brother Anas Haqqani, had started an outreach with Abu Dhabi some time ago. Presumably, major elements of the outreach predate the public side of it and took place clandestinely. Jalaluddin Haqqani, founder of the Haqqani Network in the 1970s, received financial and personnel aid from various quarters, predominantly Pakistan but also from the Arab states and US, to combat pro-Soviet political ecosystems in Kabul and later against the Soviet invasion of the country. Jalaluddin Haqqani died in 2018. His son Sirajuddin is now head of this erstwhile network and empire, which has merged into the Taliban’s delicate balance of its internal politics.

Over the past decades, this kind of history of these groups—including with the West—has been mobilised to conduct outreach with the new iteration of the Islamic Emirate. For example, the Arab world has used the Jeddah headquartered Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as a primary tool to engage the Taliban with the Islamic world. For example, Taliban’s interim foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, recently travelled to Cameroon in Africa to participate in an OIC meet. The OIC has previously engaged with the Taliban, including in Kandahar, seat of the movement’s ideological power and home to Amir al-Mu’minin Hibatullah Akhundzada, in efforts to sway the ideological anchorings of the group away from its regressive nature. These efforts have shown little success as the Taliban further strengthens its vice and virtue laws. In a recent (and rare) instance by Akhundzada, he left Kandahar and travelled to Faryab Province on the country’s border with Turkmenistan to press provincial chiefs to strictly implement the Taliban’s vice and virtue laws as a critical tool to bring unity within the country. In other words, by utilising Sharia, the Taliban is managing intra-tribal and ethnic differences, while ignoring international demands on women’s rights, human rights, ethnic inclusivity etc.

 

"The OIC has previously engaged with the Taliban, including in Kandahar, seat of the movement’s ideological power and home to Amir al-Mu’minin Hibatullah Akhundzada, in efforts to sway the ideological anchorings of the group away from its regressive nature."

 

Putting forward the OIC as an engagement tool based around theology and ideology is seeing limited dividends. However, it may the best bet moving forward, as the US has made it clear that it does not want armed conflict to return to the country in any shape or form. For Afghanistan’s neighbours, the Taliban is a reality, one which needs policy articulation to navigate incoming change and challenges without a kinetic component.

Abu Dhabi’s approach for Kabul

In the region, many analysts and those in seats of power continue to believe that Pakistan remains a critical bridge to handle the new Islamic Emirate. However, Islamabad’s own divergences with the Taliban mean that this hypothesis, which prevailed in UAE, Saudi Arabia, and others, needs a rethink.

The UAE has already played home to Afghanistan’s political crevasses. Former President Ashraf Ghani continues to live away from the public eye in Abu Dhabi. To placate the Taliban, the UAE reportedly banned Ghani from using its territory to run any political campaigns inside Afghanistan. These relatively low-risk trade-offs have made at least a section of the Taliban more approachable.

But there are more ingrained issues at play. First, security, is a critical component to manage. The Taliban’s wish to politically normalise itself as the rulers of the country is heavily dependent on them delivering on regional and international security obligations. The likes of Al Qaeda continue to enjoy safety under the Taliban rule and a failure to keep checks on Osama Bin Laden’s legacy, which has had a heavy presence across the Middle East, is a concern. The fact that former Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri was eliminated in Kabul by a US drone strike in 2022 with no successor being announced since could indicate operationalising a level of leverage that the Taliban has with Al Qaeda. Furthermore, the Taliban fighting against Islamic State Khorasan (ISKP) in the region is seen as an added benefit. The potential of ongoing crisis points such as Gaza potentially giving a new lease of life to the likes of Al Qaeda as groups and Political Islam as ideology has also raised threat perceptions.

 

"The fact that former Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri was eliminated in Kabul by a US drone strike in 2022 with no successor being announced since could indicate operationalising a level of leverage that the Taliban has with Al Qaeda."

 

Secondly, for the UAE, having a strong economic and political foothold in Afghanistan is also part of power plays in the region, which have often pitted the likes of the Saudis, Emiratis, Turks and Qataris against each other. While Doha was the venue for US talks with the Taliban for years, including the signing of the ‘exit agreement’ in 2020, Qatar and Turkey’s increasingly exclusive influence in the country is being seen as unpalatable. A slew of deals between the UAE and the Taliban in 2022 for the former to run the country’s major airports was seen as an important moment for the UAE’s wish to have more presence, and by association influence, in a post-American Kabul. The fact that the main contenders in the civil aviation space were Qatar and Turkey highlights this small but notable power tussle.

Conclusion

The UAE’s increasing presence in Afghanistan, including acceptance of the Taliban-appointed ambassador, is not contrary to trends around the region. Many regional countries, specifically those in Central Asia, have engaged with the Taliban on a very pragmatic footing to secure security on their borders and ideological security beyond the borders. The question, of course, remains if the Taliban can deliver on these in the long term. The likes of UAE have spent the past decades building their economic success stories of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and cementing their legacy as economic powers and islands of stability. Securing this long-term requires pragmaticism and nimbleness when it comes to developing security architectures for the future.

 

"Many regional countries, specifically those in Central Asia, have engaged with the Taliban on a very pragmatic footing to secure security on their borders and ideological security beyond the borders."

 

Finally, for the Taliban, this era of instability and big power competition offers an opportunity in itself. That is, to play all sides, secure their polity from external actors, and take advantage of the fact that there is a chronic level of war fatigue in the West. Most of Afghanistan’s neighbours and partners are engaging to secure their requirements. The big question remains whether the Taliban can manage its internal fractures and deliver security to the world as a trade-off for its own survival.

Kabir Taneja (ORF)
17 September 2024

 

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