Some US experts said that the strategy of reaching out to the Taliban government in Afghanistan would help the US government achieve its goals in combating terrorism and improving the lives of Afghan women and girls.

Others argue that Washington should refuse to engage with the Taliban because their ideology and actions since regaining power in August 2021 prove irreparable.

These opposing views were expressed on Tuesday during a panel discussion organized by the Middle East Institute in Washington on US policy toward the Taliban.

US forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11, with the goal of overthrowing the Taliban regime, which had been in power since 1996, after they refused to hand over members of the terrorist group al-Qaeda who were identified as involved. In the attacks on New York and Washington.

In August 2021, the last remaining US forces in the country hastily withdrew from Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan, after which the Taliban quickly regained control of the country.

Lisa Curtis, a senior fellow and director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, has argued that the US government should not engage with the Taliban because of the group’s treatment of women and girls, including severe restrictions on the right to education.

She said that violence and ill-treatment targeting women and girls had increased under the Taliban, leading to an increase in suicides among women in the country.

Curtis described US President Joe Biden’s administration’s attempts to engage the Taliban on terrorism-related issues as a “mistake,” and said that just because the group is currently fighting militants affiliated with the Islamic State terrorist group, the United States should not consider it appropriate. counterterrorism partners.

“Instead, the United States should focus on helping women in Afghanistan,” she added.

Douglas London, a former CIA officer and nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute, said he understands Curtis’ position but believes nonetheless that the United States must engage with the Taliban to achieve its own goals in the war against terrorism, influence and change the way they are governed. The country’s Taliban.

While the Taliban is not a homogeneous group, none of them can be described as progressive, he admitted, but some of them may have different interests and ideas. He said he would like to see the return of an official US presence in Afghanistan but conceded that this may not be possible at present.

London said there was indeed cooperation between the CIA and other elements within the US government and the Taliban, though it was not clear if it was happening inside Afghanistan or in a third party country.

Ronald E. Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and former US ambassador to Afghanistan, said Washington has no strategy for Afghanistan or for dealing with the Taliban. He said that although the US government has made some decisions on Afghanistan since the withdrawal of its forces from the country, they do not constitute a clear policy, let alone a strategy.

Neumann endorsed the idea that the United States should engage with the Taliban because the lack of any ties hinders Washington’s ability to articulate its position or apply pressure when needed. He said the US presence in Kabul will also help advance US policies.

Newman noted that America also has a moral responsibility to help the Afghan people, especially from an economic point of view. He explained that about $500 million of private funds belonging to Afghan citizens are currently frozen in US banks as a result of the sanctions imposed on the Taliban, but they are money deposited by private Afghan banks and have nothing to do with the regime.

“The United States has no moral right to hold this money,” he said. “Bringing them back would be a blow to the Afghan economy.”

Javed Ahmed, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute and former Afghan ambassador to the UAE, called the Taliban an irredeemably oppressive group. Echoing the belief that there is already some degree of cooperation between Washington and Kabul, he said he feels a lack of appetite in the United States and Europe to try to destabilize the regime because there is no desirable alternative.

Ahmed painted a bleak picture of the current political and social atmosphere in Afghanistan, saying that the space for discussion and tolerance between them has shrunk and society has become increasingly polarized since the return of the Taliban to power.

He said: “The past has not become history for us, it is our present now.”