The United States and the Taliban before and after 9/11

Jonathan Cristol

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9783319971711
• eBook ISBN: 9783319971728
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book tells the story of the United States' relationship with the Taliban from the start of the Taliban movement until its retreat from Kabul in the face of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The US and the Taliban held countless meetings, but could never come to a workable arrangement, and this book examines both why diplomatic recognition was so important to the Taliban government and why the US refused to recognize it. It presents a concise, readable, and interesting perspective on US/Taliban relations from the fall of Kabul in 1996 until the fall of Kabul in 2001.

© The Author(s) 2019

Jonathan CristolThe United States and the Taliban before and after 9/11https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97172-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Diplomatic Recognition and the Taliban Movement

Jonathan Cristol¹

(1)

Levermore Global Scholars Program, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, USA

Jonathan Cristol

Abstract

Recognition was the top foreign policy priority of the new Taliban movement in Afghanistan. This chapter answers two questions: What is diplomatic recognition? and Why was American diplomatic recognition so important to the Taliban? The chapter explains the different theoretical and legal criteria that states use to recognize new regimes or new states. It investigates the tangible and intangible benefits that come from diplomatic recognition. Recognition legitimates the authority of the government for the domestic audience. Domestic legitimacy was especially important to the Taliban, who were engaged in a civil war for the majority of their tenure. It argues that the United States adheres to a constitutive theory of diplomatic recognition and recognizes new governments for political, rather than legal, reasons. It did not recognize the Taliban government for domestic political reasons and a misperception of the geostrategic importance of Afghanistan after the Cold War.

Keywords

AfghanistanDiplomatic recognitionEffective controlLegitimacyTalibanUnited States foreign policy

End Abstract

In 1994, the Afghan government was an amalgam of different mujahedeen groups armed by the United States to fight the Soviet Union in the 1979–1989 Soviet–Afghan War. The mujahedeen’s tenure in power was marked by constant armed conflict between factions, which resulted in little stability for the average Afghan. The instability was so great that at one point, Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar , the recognized prime minister of Afghanistan, “threatened to destroy his own capital city” (Gannon 2005, p. 12). Hekmatyar was a friend of Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden and had a horrifying human rights record. One Defense Intelligence Agency raw-intelligence report called Hekmatyar an, “incompetent… Islamic fundamentalist who reportedly boasted about throwing acid in the faces of women who did not wear the traditional, all-covering, Afghan chador” (Anonymous. Redacted. 2001). Burhanuddin Rabbani , the recognized president of Afghanistan, believed that Afghanistan should be governed according to Islamic law. A United States Senate Resolution singled out his forces for “numerous abhorrent human rights abuses, including the rape, sexual abuse, torture, abduction, and persecution of women and girls” (Dodd 1997, par. 3). ¹ This was the government recognized by the United States as the legitimate government of Afghanistan at the start of the Taliban movement.

This chapter looks at two questions: What is diplomatic recognition? and Why did the Taliban care so much about the United States recognizing the Taliban government? Though the Taliban did not formally request recognition until 8 November 1996, it was a top priority of its foreign policy from the founding of the movement until almost the day the US invasion of Afghanistan began on 7 October 2001. The Taliban did not seek recognition only from the United States. They also prioritized gaining control of Afghanistan’s seat in the United Nations and sought recognition from a wide range of other governments as well. They were successful only in persuading Pakistan , Saudi Arabia , and the United Arab Emirates to grant diplomatic recognition to the Taliban. The Taliban did not desire recognition to gratify their own egos. Recognized states enjoy a particular set of rights and privileges.

Recognition is not “merely cognition” (Briggs 1949, p. 120). Diplomatic recognition is the process by which one state recognizes a particular political entity as a state, with all of the rights, privileges, duties, and obligations of statehood. Diplomatic recognition is not only extended to new states, but also to new governments that come to power through irregular means (typically, but not always, violent). Recognition of a state is recognition of its existence. Recognition of a government is recognition of its legitimacy. In 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran required re-recognition as Iran’s legitimate government, but the sovereign state of Iran remained recognized. The Taliban capture of Kabul, and later 90% of Afghanistan’s territory, presented the world with a similar situation—Afghanistan did not require re-recognition, but so long as the Taliban were unrecognized, President Burhanuddin Rabbani ’s government remained recognized as the legitimate government of Afghanistan despite controlling only 10% of Afghanistan’s territory. ²

There are two sets of generally accepted criteria for what constitutes a state. The first criteria originate from the 1933 “Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States ,” which defined a state as an entity that has (1) a permanent population, (2) a defined territory, (3) a government, and (4) the capacity to enter into external relations with other states, meaning that it has an independent foreign policy. The second set of criteria comes from “Agenda Item 61” of the (1950) Fifth Session of the United Nations General Assembly . The UN criteria, more applicable to recognition of new governments than states and thus, more relevant to the Taliban question, define states as entities that have (1) “effective control and authority over all or nearly all the national territory,” (2) “obedience of the bulk of the population,” and (3) the “control, authority, and obedience appear to be of a permanent character.” Neither of these sets of criteria have anything to do with democracy, or liberal government. The people do not even have to be supportive of the government; they could tacitly acquiesce to the government’s authority. At its peak, the Taliban government exerted “effective control” over “nearly all the national territory,” its presence appeared permanent, and the bulk of the population was not in rebellion against it. The fact that the Taliban government met these criteria did not automatically entitle it to recognition from the United States.

Afghanistan under the Taliban clearly met the Montevideo criteria for statehood, and Afghanistan’s continued existence as a sovereign state was never in dispute. The Taliban’s qualifications for recognition as the legitimate government of Afghanistan under the UN criteria are more arguable as the Taliban never succeeded in pacifying the entirety of the state. The Taliban had a tougher case to make for it to be seated in the UN. Membership in the UN requires governments to be “willing and able to carry out UN charter obligations” (Blanchfield and Browne 2014, p. 5). It is clear that the Taliban were not able to meet these obligations and they likely did not even understand what they were. Australian National University’s William Maley (2000, par. 18) writes that the Taliban had, “Little understanding of the evolved practices of modern diplomacy; virtually no comprehension of the politics of states outside the Muslim world.” The desire for recognition was intuitive, not the result of knowledge of international law.

However, for all intents and purposes, for the United States, the decision to recognize a new state or new government is not the result of an objective assessment of specific criteria; it is a political decision. The United States adheres to the “constitutive theory of recognition”—a state exists when other states say it exists. There are those who argue that the United States should follow an alternate model—the “declaratory theory of recognition.” This theory sees recognition as a three-step process: (1) a political entity declares itself a new state or in control of a preexisting state; (2) the potential recognizer applies some set of preexisting criteria for statehood to the new entity; and (3) if it meets those criteria it is recognized; if it does not meet those criteria, it is not recognized. Thus, recognition is either automatic or unnecessary. Automatic because a government needs only to meet the criteria to be recognized, and unnecessary because if it meets objective criteria, there is no need to internationally validate a government with recognition. Thomas Jefferson was a supporter of the declarative approach to recognition, as he did not think the United States should make political judgments about foreign governments (Weeks 2001). Successive American presidents shared Jefferson’s position until President Woodrow Wilson changed US policy for ideological reasons.

The most common approach to recognition in either theory is “effectivism”—the idea that a government that is “in actual control of the administrative machinery of the state, is performing normal governmental functions, and is not meeting with open resistance to its authority” is the legitimate government of the state (Fenwick 1944, p. 448). The lack of open resistance helps to indicate to the states in the system that the new government is legitimate. The French justified recognition of the United States as a response to the “effective possession of independence” after the American Revolution (Fabry 2010, p. 30). Nevertheless, Georgia Institute of Technology’s Mikulas Fabry (2010, p. 41) argues that, “The ability to take effective control of a territory, whether from within or without, could not, by itself establish legitimate titles.” Historically, effective control was a necessary, but not sole, condition for recognition. A state is not compelled by international law to recognize any government that has effective control, but legally it cannot recognize one that does not. There is, however, an “effectivist” theory of diplomatic recognition—that if a new government has effective control over its territory, then it is the state’s legitimate government, regardless of its character. Thus, effectivism is similar to the declaratory theory, but is specific about the requirement for recognition to be granted. ³ Yet even effectivism is not widely practiced. If effectivism were widely practiced, then, at the apex of their power, the Taliban would have been recognized by more than three states.

The declaratory approach to recognition may seem simpler, but despite specific sets of criteria used by states, multiple states that do not meet those criteria have been universally recognized and indisputably exist. University of California at Santa Barbara’s Bridget Coggins (2006, p. 10) writes, “There are very few cases in recent history where new state members unambiguously met the theoretical or legal standards for statehood, yet states have proliferated.” And while the declaratory approach may seem simpler, between 1931 and 2002 only four states (Bangladesh, Eritrea, Slovenia, and Somaliland) met ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: Diplomatic Recognition and the Taliban Movement
• 2. The Rise of the Taliban
• 3. The Taliban Take Kabul and a New Friend Moves to Kandahar
• 4. US/Taliban Relations and the Intervention of Domestic Politics
• 5. The US and the Taliban Talk in Circles as the bin Laden Threat Grows
• 6. Conclusion: One Last Chance
• Back Matter