Afghanistan Has a Lot at Stake in the Iran Conflict

The Diplomat

9 hours ago

From a massive refugee population to a major trade partner, Iran is of crucial importance to the Taliban regime. The U.S. should pay attention to the growing relationship.
Mahnoor Naimi recorded her latest vlog on June 22. She asked her viewers to pray for her, and to forgive her, if she didn't make it home.
She said she was stuck in Iran.
Speaking from the Sang-e Safid camp, near the border between Iran and Afghanistan, the Afghan YouTuber – likely in her mid-20s – appeared weary, but composed.
In the video, posted on the same day the United States dropped bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities (and then reposted to her channel a few days later), Naimi said she just wanted to go home to Afghanistan.
About a year ago, she left Afghanistan and went to Tehran looking for work. Since then, she has lived in various cities across Iran, trying to build a life. She has shared her journey through videos posted on YouTube. In one of her vlogs, she shared that she worked at a clothing factory, sewing garments.
Back in 2021, as the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, reportedly more than a million Afghans fled to Iran for a variety of reasons.
But as the war between Israel and Iran heated up, Naimi – and many others – decided it's time to come back.
The bombings weren't the only factor. In recent months, Iranian authorities have been rounding up Afghan refugees, transferring them to deportation camps near the Iran-Afghanistan border. Human Rights Watch has described the camps as 'veritable prisons.' Reports of harassment, violence, and even torture at the hands of Iranian officials have continuously emerged from Afghans held in these sites.
And that was before the war.
Naimi, in her post on June 22, spoke carefully so as not to provoke Iranian audiences. She described the heartbreaking scenes around her: hungry children, frail men and women searching desperately for a piece of bread, and families living in misery.
Weeping, she said that more than anything, she wants to return home.
'Whatever Afghanistan is, it is ours. It is our country,' she said in the video.
Despite the war unfolding just across its western border, life in Afghanistan remained strikingly calm. One might have expected panic in Kabul, especially given the fragile state of its economy. Yet, remarkably, there has been little visible disruption.
Contrary to widespread expectations, the Taliban have refrained from taking a strong public stance on the conflict. The leadership has avoided broad or inflammatory statements – neither issuing loud condemnations of Israel nor showing extraordinary support for Iran. Instead, they have adopted a calculated, restrained posture, one that appears aimed at avoiding entanglement in the broader regional conflict.
Since the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, the group has faced widespread international condemnation and diplomatic isolation. Amid widespread concerns over human rights abuses, particularly against women and minorities, no country has formally recognized the Taliban government. Economic sanctions, the freezing of Afghanistan's central bank assets, and restrictions on foreign aid have further strained the country's fragile economy.
That may be why the Taliban appear to be proceeding with caution amid the backdrop of a highly volatile Middle East. The Taliban have previously expressed a desire to normalize relations with the international community, particularly the United States, even if primarily driven by their own interests.
That may explain why, during the recent conflict between Israel and Iran, the de facto government demonstrated an unexpected level of restraint. A brief statement issued on June 21 – the day before the U.S. strikes on Iran – outlined a meeting between Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and Iran's ambassador in Kabul. In the statement, Muttaqi condemned Israel's attacks on Iran, calling them a clear violation of international law, and expressed solidarity with the Iranian people.
Yet there have been no mass protests in Afghanistan. No Israeli flags have been burned; no anti-American slogans have been heard.
The Taliban's restrained response to the Israel-Iran conflict stands in contrast to the approach taken by some officials during the former U.S.-backed Republic. In 2017, then-Deputy Chief Executive Mohammad Mohaqiq publicly praised and thanked Iranian General Qassem Soleimani – who was later killed in a U.S. airstrike – for his role in forming the Fatemiyoun Brigade, a militia composed of Afghan refugees recruited by Iran to fight in Syria.
Mohaqiq's remarks, which also endorsed Iran's efforts to mobilize Afghan fighters, reflected the extent of Tehran's influence even within the leadership of a government established by the United States.
The Taliban's current approach toward Iran takes place in a different context. Today, Iran – despite its own constrained circumstances – serves as a pivotal economic lifeline for Afghanistan.
The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates that nearly 4.5 million Afghan nationals live in Iran, 71 percent of whom are women and children. Other sources suggest the actual number may be even higher. In recent years, Iran has deported thousands of Afghans – a process that only intensified amid the escalating war with Israel. If Iran continues with mass deportations of Afghans, it will exacerbate Afghanistan's existing economic hardships.
According to Naimi's vlog, Afghans she met in the camp 'are so vulnerable that it is hard to describe in words.' She noted that the Afghans would urgently need shelter, employment, and food upon arriving in Afghanistan. Yet food and jobs are precisely what Afghanistan cannot offer.
The United Nations reported this week that the Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan has received only 18 percent of its required funding as of June 19, severely disrupting aid delivery to millions – including women, children, returnees, refugees, displaced communities, and other vulnerable groups.
Reportedly, the Taliban have struggled even to pay their own rank and file. Creating new employment opportunities is hardly expected from an unrecognized regime ruling a landlocked country facing drought and burdened by heavy sanctions.
Now, couple the refugee crisis with Afghanistan's heavy reliance on trade with Iran, and the fragility of the country's situation becomes even more apparent. Here, the potential fallout of regional war becomes impossible to ignore.
In 2024, both Iranian and Afghan officials highlighted the growing economic ties between the two countries, with some claiming that annual trade had reached billions.
According to Afghanistan's TOLO News, official figures from Afghanistan's Ministry of Industry and Commerce indicated that bilateral trade in the first nine months of 2024 totaled $2.2 billion – $2.2 billion in imports and only $38 million in exports. The bulk of Afghan imports from Iran consisted of diesel, petrol, and natural gas.
Given the heavy international sanctions on Iran – particularly targeting its oil and gas sector – such exports to Afghanistan provide Tehran with a critical economic outlet and a rare source of foreign currency. Heavily sanctioned itself, Afghanistan has little choice but to rely on Iran's oil and gas – an uneasy dependence that forges ties born out of necessity rather than genuine alliance.
After investing two decades of effort and resources, the United States now appears to be allowing Afghanistan to fall into the sphere of Iran, a regional rival and adversary. For now, the Taliban's relatively measured approach to the Iran-Israel conflict reflects their lingering hope to forge some level of ties with Washington. But if Taliban leaders eventually give up those efforts, a full-fledged embrace of Iran could follow.
This is not merely about leaving Afghanistan trapped in the misery of sanctions – allowing Iran to gain influence represents a strategic setback for the United States after pouring blood and billions into the country. It raises urgent questions about the true cost of the United States' longest war and the enduring consequences of its withdrawal, if Afghanistan drifts further into the orbit of a heavily sanctioned regional adversary.
The rights of millions of Afghan girls and women like Mahnoor Naimi – to work, to receive an education, and to live with dignity in their own country – should never be up for negotiation. Still, the tentative ceasefire with Iran – and the prospect of a weakened regime in Tehran – may offer the United States an opportunity to rethink its approach to Afghanistan and pursue a path of calculated, diplomatic engagement. Absent meaningful engagement, a destabilized Afghanistan – fraught with desperation, isolation, and volatility – risks becoming a nexus of renewed extremism and proxy conflicts that the United States and its allies cannot afford to disregard.
This does not imply that the U.S. should endorsed the Taliban, nor empower a regime widely condemned for systemic gender-based oppression. Rather, it reflects a sober recognition of the complex and enduring realities on the ground: to forgo engagement with the de facto authorities is to abandon millions of Afghans like Naimi, who are caught in an intensifying humanitarian and political crisis. Persisting with sanctions in the absence of dialogue threatens only to exacerbate their suffering. Without urgent intervention, the lives of Naimi and millions of Afghan men, women, and children – who remain, by choice or circumstance, unable to flee – hang precariously by a thread.