Allies will make the difference in exiting Afghanistan, dealing with Iran

In recent weeks, the long-awaited outline of the Biden administration’s Central Asian policies has come into focus. At its core are two signature initiatives: renewed outreach to Iran and measured withdrawal from Afghanistan. In their own ways, each is fitted to the moment faced by President Biden and his team. At the same time, the dilemmas of Middle East policy rarely present linear and uncomplicated solutions. To successfully execute on his campaign pledges and leave the region in better condition than he found it, the administration would do well to lay the groundwork by coordinating a coalition of America’s staunchest allies. 

In certain respects, the case for American redeployment from Afghanistan has never been stronger. As many have noted, an American child born on Sept. 11, 2001 would now be more than old enough to deploy to the Afghan mountains where the attacks were hatched, in the longest running conflict in American history. Peaceable and commercial democracies like the United States cannot be expected to bear such burdens indefinitely. 

There is ample reason for withdrawal. A consensus has emerged in the U.S. intelligence community that neither Al Qaeda nor other terrorist groups pose “an immediate threat to strike the United States from Afghanistan,” an assessment which doubtless weighed heavily on the Biden administration as it formulated the strategic guidelines of its Afghanistan policy this year. 

Of course, withdrawal comes in many forms. No one seeks a repeat of the debacle at Saigon in 1975, or the ultimately ephemeral departure from Iraq in 2011. A sustainable withdrawal — one which preempts the need for future deployments — requires coordination with regional allies and the construction of an intelligence apparatus that would bolster the Afghan government’s own capacities and dissuade the Taliban from intensifying the conflict. 

Such a strategy would have a reactive and proactive component. In the former camp, deterring an all-out Taliban offensive to break the Kabul government will necessitate strengthening the capabilities of the Afghan armed forces, whose performance to date has been mixed. Washington would be wise to bolster Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s capability to keep his elite force of 20,000 to 30,000 troops in the field, salaried and content, in order to stem the tide of Taliban battlefield gains. 

More proactively, the White House should shepherd the creation of an intelligence consultative apparatus to which all the regional stakeholders contribute. The U.S., Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the UAE, and even Iran all share an interest in preventing a conclusive Taliban victory. Each of them can play a role in helping the current Afghan government establish a new equilibrium following the departure of American troops. 

The challenge presented by Tehran presents a diplomatic quandary of a different but, in certain respects, analogous sort. As in Afghanistan, the administration is pursuing an unenviable effort to bring all the key regional actors into alignment with its renegotiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. 

The previous administration attempted, through the “maximum pressure” campaign, to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear aspirations and renegotiate the accord on Washington’s terms. While the latter objective was not achieved, the campaign did create leverage which Biden’s team could skillfully utilize. Meaningful sanctions relief would throw a lifeline to an Iranian economy whose main export has tumbled to a fraction of its pre-sanctions levels. While few in the administration may believe that all of Tehran’s malign activities are available for concession in exchange for the removal of secondary sanctions, by the same token it is similarly implausible that none are. It is crucial for the administration’s negotiating team to probe Iranian red lines and extract the best possible opening bid. 

In this early phase, Washington should be clear that it will not offer major sanctions relief without guarantees that Iran will immediately begin negotiations for a subsequent agreement that, at the least, extends the timeline for the JCPOA’s “sunset provisions” and addresses recurring issues of International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. The relatively short duration of these sunset provisions has, since their inception, stoked apprehension and distrust among America’s allies in the region. It is surely no coincidence that, following the Obama administration’s decision to formalize an entente with Tehran in 2013, both Jerusalem and Riyadh began to confront perceived Iranian encroachment in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere in a far more aggressive, militarized fashion. It would be in the interest of all parties for the Biden administration to forestall a repetition of that grim history. 

On this score, the current environment offers both opportunity and peril. The Gulf states have tired of their prolonged military entanglement in Yemen and may welcome an American diplomatic initiative that provides a framework for Tehran to gradually wind down some of its own proxies. At the same time, Washington should be under no illusions about its Israeli and Arab allies’ threat perception of Iran. As the last several years amply demonstrate, reassuring America’s friends that a burgeoning entente with their staunchest foe will not come at their expense will likely prove to be a fraught task. And yet, it is no less essential if the JCPOA’s second iteration is to prove more sustainable than its first.

To that end, one might be forgiven for hoping that both Iran and the United States are aware of the need to reset their expectations and willing to begin a process of gradual deescalation that, in time, can forge the basis for a long-term solution. In this regard, the initial round of indirect talks is a promising beginning, but only a beginning. Both sides should strive — as Biden’s team surely does — to reduce tensions on a larger scale. Several Americans continue to languish in Iranian captivity; their release would not only be a moral act, but a shrewd confidence-building measure that would do much to defang domestic American hostility to renewed negotiations.  

“We will not accept a long-term proposition where they continue to hold Americans in an unjust and unlawful manner,” as White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan recently said, noting that their prolonged detention represented a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

Affirming universal principles such as these, both for Americans and for all societies, is part of what has brought hope to the world that the Biden administration will do enormous good. This hope is a currency that is already boosting trans-Atlantic relations with Washington’s oldest European allies. It can and should also make relations between the U.S. and its longtime partners in the Middle East even stronger. 

As Biden strives to reinforce U.S. diplomacy in the region in a way that also addresses the needs of the Palestinians, he similarly aims to revive the promise of diplomacy with Iran in a way that also addresses the concerns of Arab states and Israel. Whether in Iran, Afghanistan, or the territory into which those conflicts spill, the Biden vision is feasible and necessary and can be achieved more swiftly in partnership with allies.

Ahmed Charai is a Moroccan publisher. He is on the board of directors for the Atlantic Council, a board of Trustees member of International Crisis Group, an international counselor of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for the National Interest in Washington and Global Board of Advisors at The Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security in Jerusalem.