Commentary: Afghanistan’s fall makes Middle East countries sit up
MELBOURNE: In the 19th century, the phrase "The Great Game" was used to describe competition for power and influence in Afghanistan, and neighbouring central and south Asia territories, between the British and Russian empires.
Neither side prevailed in what became known every bit the "graveyard of empires".
Two centuries later, an American superpower has been reminded of a similar reality.
The Transitional islamic state of afghanistan debacle, in which a 300,000-strong US-trained and equipped Afghan army collapsed in hours serves as a reminder of the limits of American power in the wider Center East.
U.s. President Joe Biden may exist enduring the sharpest criticism for a disastrously executed withdrawal. But there is plenty of blame to go around, dating back to the original ill-blighted decision to "nation build" a country that has resisted exterior interference for thousands of years.
Subsequently the fall of Kabul and the jerky US withdrawal from a country on which it had squandered The states$1 trillion, the question remains: What next for the Center East?
This is a question whose arc stretches from Morocco in the w to Pakistan in the due east, from Turkey in the northward down into the Gulf and beyond to the Horn of Africa.
Every corner of the Eye East and North Africa will be touched in some style by the failure of American authority in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, the longest war in its history.
A NEW SAIGON?
Inevitably, comparisons are existence made betwixt America'due south panicky withdrawal from Kabul and like scenes in Saigon, 46 years ago.
In some respects, the Afghan state of affairs is more concerning because then much of the Middle Due east is at risk of descending into chaos.
The defeat of the S Vietnamese army in 1975 might accept influenced developments in the neighbouring states of Indo-China, just fallout was largely contained.
Afghanistan is different in the sense that while America'south credibility and self-confidence was battered in Vietnam, it remained the dominant military force in the western Pacific before Cathay'south rising.
In the Heart East, a macerated Washington – in which confidence in its ability to stand by its commitments has been shaken, if non shattered – will find that its authority will be much questioned.
This comes at a time when China and Russia are testing American resolve globally. In the region itself, Turkey and Iran are already seeking to fill up a vacuum exposed by an American failure.
Beijing and Moscow, for their own reasons, accept an interest in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan's future. For China, that goes across just sharing a edge, while for Russia it is historical concerns about Afghan extremism infecting its own Muslim populations and those of nation states on its periphery.
Recently, Communist china has been cultivating Taliban leaders. Its foreign minister Wang Yi held a well-publicised coming together with the Afghan Taliban's political principal Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar last month.
And then there is Pakistan, which has supported the Taliban both covertly and overtly over the years. Islamabad will see in the American extreme discomfort opportunities for itself to assume a more meaning regional role.
This is non to forget Pakistan's close ties to China, and its fractious relationship with the United States.
In Afghanistan itself, the Taliban may live upwards to its undertakings that it has inverse and that it volition seek to found consensus dominion in a country riven past bloody ethnic and tribal divisions.
Given early indications of brutal Taliban reprisals against its enemies and the panicked reaction of vanquish-shocked Afghan population it would accept a leap of faith to believe much has changed.
MORE BANDWIDTH TO FOCUS ON IRAN
Volition the Al-Qaeda and Islamic Land franchises be allowed to re-found themselves in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan? Volition the Taliban re-emerge as a state sponsor of terrorism? Will information technology continue to allow Transitional islamic state of afghanistan to be used as a giant market garden in the opium trade?
In other words, will the Taliban modify its means and behave in such a fashion that it does non constitute a threat to its neighbours, and the region more generally?
America's leave from Transitional islamic state of afghanistan leaves its attempts to exhale life into the nuclear deal with Iran as its main slice of unfinished Center East business organisation – if we put aside the seemingly intractable Israel-Palestine dispute.
Attempts to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) take formed a cornerstone of the Biden administration's efforts to engage more constructively in the Eye East.
Progress has been unpleasing. The ballot of a new hardline Iranian president farther complicates efforts to accomplish compromise.
Failure to resuscitate the JCPOA, abandoned by President Donald Trump, volition add a new layer of uncertainty – and take a chance – to Middle East calculations.
There volition have been no more than interested political party in developments in neighbouring Afghanistan than the leadership in Tehran. Iran's relationship with the Taliban has been fraught at times, cooperative at others, given the feet in Tehran over mistreatment of Afghanistan's Shia population.
Shia Iran and the Sunni fundamentalist Taliban are not natural partners.
SAUDI ARABIA AND QATAR SIT UP
Further afield, the latest developments in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan will exist capturing the close attention of Gulf states.
Qatar has provided a diplomatic haven for the Taliban during peace talks with the vanquished Ghani government. This peace initiative, under US auspices, is now revealed to accept been a foil for the Taliban'due south ambitions to return to ability in its own correct.
How any reasonable observer could have believed otherwise is misreckoning.
Saudi arabia will be unsettled by developments of the by few days considering information technology is not in Riyadh'due south interests for American potency in the region to exist undermined. But the Saudis take their own longstanding links with the Taliban.
In Saudi Arabian strange policy, Afghanistan is non a nix-sum game.
EGYPT, JORDAN AND ISRAEL Volition BE Computing
More generally, the hit to The states standing in the region will exist worrying for its moderate Arab allies. This includes Arab republic of egypt and Hashemite kingdom of jordan. For both, with their own versions of the Taliban lurking in the shadows, events in Afghanistan are not expert news.
The Taliban success in Afghanistan will as well have implications for the most combustible corner of the Middle E. In both Iraq and parts of Syria where the US maintains a military machine presence, the American get out will exist unsettling.
In Lebanon, which has go to all intents and purposes a failed state, the Afghanistan debacle will be adding to the gloom.
Israel will exist computing the implications of the setback suffered by its principal ally. Increased Eye East instability would not seem to be to Israel'due south advantage.
In this next phase, America will no doubt pull back from all but its about pressing Centre East commitments. This will be a time for it to reflect on what lessons might be learned from the painful Transitional islamic state of afghanistan experience.
I lesson that should be paramount as far as America and its allies are concerned: Fighting "failed state" wars is a losing suggestion.
Tony Walker is a vice-chancellor'southward boyfriend at La Trobe University. This commentary kickoff appeared in The Chat.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/afghanistan-fall-impact-middle-east-implications-return-taliban-277421
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