NEW YORK -- It is easy to feel antagonism toward Afghanistan's Taliban leadership. As if its assault on women's basic rights were not enough, it has turned its rage against historical monuments in actions that have been almost universally condemned. But this condemnation has not changed its policies at all. If anything, it has made it more adamant about following its own dictates, no matter what the cost. As a result, other governments -- notably the United States -- and the United Nations face the dilemma of what to do with a fanatic regime in order to limit the damage it does to its own people.
Several human-rights advocates around the world (including myself) have asked for total isolation of the Taliban regime. Its relative isolation has in fact grown following the U.N.'s intensification of sanctions against the regime last December. The sanctions' primary goal is for the Taliban leadership to turn over Osama bin Laden, accused masterminding the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and of plotting the attack on the USS Cole. But despite the sanctions, the Taliban's behavior has not changed -- and probably never will under pressure. In the meantime, the Afghans continue to suffer.
According to Nancy Soderberg, a U.S. ambassador to the U.N., the sanctions were targeted so as not to have an impact on the humanitarian situation in the country. However, by isolating the people from normal contact with other countries, and making more difficult the work of international aid agencies, the sanctions have only succeeded in making an already difficult situation even worse for the general population.