How Iran did not take the Taliban into the “Axis of Resistance”

Considering the length and the extent of the relationship, one might wonder how the Taliban did not make it to the so-called “Axis of Resistance”, that is how the collection of armed groups, aligned with the IRGC’s regional goals and coordinated by the Quds Force of the IRGC, started being called around 2003.4 The question is pertinent as at one point, after the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, the IRGC and other Iranian actors openly approached the Taliban’s Emirate and invited it to join the Axis of Resistance, as discussed below.

This paper seeks to answer the question by looking at the nature of the relationship, which went through many highs and lows over its 20 years and involved an ever changing array of actors at the Taliban end of the relationship. It is structured in two sections, the first of which explores the IRGC-Taliban relationship chronologically, going through its different stages and turns. The second section discusses the different types of IRGC clients, proxies and allies within the Taliban.