Biden unlikely to formally recognize Taliban government

But the understandable U.S. reluctance to recognize the new government could spawn confusion in the years ahead everywhere from courtrooms to summit corridors, not to mention complicate dealings with a country whose population relies heavily on foreign aid. Over time, as it has with some other countries, the U.S. might find itself tacitly recognizing a Taliban government even if it never explicitly does so.

“No one is arguing that the state of Afghanistan has ceased to exist, and the rest of the world can’t avoid interacting with it,” said Scott Anderson, a former State Department lawyer who has studied the topic of government recognition. “At some point, people are going to have to acknowledge some entity as having the capacity to speak for Afghanistan in exercising its rights or obligations.”

‘Reign of terror’

Already, the White House is struggling to balance the necessity of dealing with Kabul’s new rulers even as Taliban foot-soldiers beat protesters and execute perceived adversaries. Just this week, the White House drew criticism after one of its spokespersons described the Taliban as “businesslike” and “professional” during negotiations to permit foreign nationals and Afghans with proper papers to leave the country.

But diplomatic niceties are one thing; diplomatic recognition is another. At the moment, Biden administration officials say they are so focused on immediate crises, especially the ongoing evacuations, that there’s little bandwidth to devote to such a high-level policy question. And the reality is that whoever is in the White House could take years, if forever, to decide on the recognition question.

“It’s not really an active, current discussion,” a senior administration official told POLITICO. President Joe Biden himself has said such recognition is a “long way off.”

The lack of a recognized government in Kabul is nonetheless already creating headaches beyond the White House.

For instance, as the Taliban swept back to power in Afghanistan last month, Hogan Lovells, a legal firm, realized it had a problem: Its client in a long-running case no longer existed. That client was the now-vanquished government of Afghanistan, on whose soil 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was once based. That government was being sued by a Sept. 11 family.

At the law firm’s request, a judge in late August granted a 60-day stay in the case. But, for practical and political reasons, it will likely take much longer than that for there to be legal clarity on who now counts as the defendant.

Some of Biden’s top aides are linking the prospect of future recognition of a Taliban government to the Islamist militia’s behavior. That includes holding the Taliban to long-term promises to respect human rights, especially for women and girls, and to prevent terrorist groups like al Qaeda from using Afghanistan as a haven.

“The Taliban says it seeks international legitimacy and international support. And that will depend entirely on what it does, not just on what it says,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told TOLO News when asked this week about recognition. “And the trajectory of its relationship with us and with the rest of the world will depend on its actions.”

Deciding on recognition is largely up to the executive branch. But any possibility of recognizing a Taliban government is likely to meet staunch opposition from some U.S. lawmakers.

“I will oppose any and all efforts by the Biden administration to legitimize the Afghan Taliban as the government of Afghanistan,” Graham said in a statement Tuesday. “They are a terrorist organization. Any country who provides them legitimacy is setting in motion a reign of terror for the people of Afghanistan and the spread of the terror threat throughout the world.”

Meantime, the United States has little choice but to deal with the Taliban.

At the moment, the U.S. – and dozens of other countries, according to one joint statement – is engaging the militants to ensure that they keep their pledges to allow foreign nationals and Afghans with travel permits to leave Afghanistan. On Thursday, the Taliban let some 200 people fly out.

In another nod to practical considerations, U.S. military officials have said they may cooperate with the Taliban to battle a common foe, the ISIS-K terrorist group. The U.S. has accused ISIS-K of carrying out a bombing that killed 13 American troops as they helped evacuate people from Afghanistan last month.

As Afghanistan’s economic and humanitarian condition worsens in the wake of the Taliban takeover, the United States and other countries will have to make difficult choices about how much, if any, aid to give to the country without somehow seeming to legitimate the Taliban.

Taliban representatives have called on other countries to recognize their right to rule. When it comes to the United States in particular, one militant is reported to have said: “The Islamic Emirate is keen to maintain good diplomatic, economic and trade relations with America on the basis of mutual respect and equality.”

The gray zone

Since Kabul fell last month, no government has formally recognized the new Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But there’s precedent and parallels for doing so, and the murky nature of both international and domestic law on the issue means there’s room for governments to engage the regime in ways that all but give recognition.

Take Venezuela. In early 2019, then-President Donald Trump announced he no longer recognized autocrat Nicolás Maduro as the Latin American country’s legitimate leader. Instead, the U.S. and dozens of other countries decided to recognize Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the country’s interim president. Guaidó’s aides gained access to Venezuelan embassies and some Venezuelan government bank accounts, while Guaidó met Trump at the White House and attended his 2020 State of the Union speech.

But in the years since, the United States has found itself having to deal with the Maduro regime anyway because it controls the territory, and countries like Russia and Iran have stuck by the dictator.