Containment via Engagement: The Paradoxical Architecture of Iran–Taliban Relations (2021–2025)

Iran’s post-2021 Afghanistan policy embodies a strategic paradox: simultaneous construction of a 3 billion euro border wall and facilitation of $35 million Taliban investments in Chabahar Port, alongside 1.8 million deportations coexisting with $2.5 billion bilateral trade. Existing literature lacks integrative theoretical frameworks explaining how contradictory policy strands cohere, with analyses remaining domain-specific and missing critical 2024–2025 developments under President Pezeshkian. This study deconstructs Iran’s “containment via engagement” doctrine, examining its strategic logic across security, hydro-political, economic, and humanitarian domains through 2025. Employing qualitative process-tracing and critical discourse analysis, this research synthesizes official statements, international organization data, trade statistics, and satellite imagery, applying an eclectic theoretical framework integrating strategic hedging, securitization theory, asymmetric interdependence, and neoclassical realism. The article makes an original contribution to the desecuritization literature by demonstrating that Afghanistan’s response to Iran’s securitization of Helmand River waters constitutes not counter-securitization but a systematic desecuritizing effort: the Islamic Emirate repositions water scarcity as a shared environmental challenge rather than a security threat, thereby contesting Iran’s exceptional-measures framing through technical and cooperative discourse. The relationship’s brittle equilibrium risks escalation absent multilateral water diplomacy and humanitarian corridors, with broader relevance for understanding transactional engagement models in trust-deficient regional relationships.