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Written by James M. Dorsey
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan was a geopolitical watershed. Its shockwaves continue to reverberate and are magnified by the wars in Ukraine and Yemen.
Coupled with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US withdrawal removed a major obstacle to Iranian projection in Central Asia and created an opportunity for Iran to potentially enhance its influence, increase trade, and expand security cooperation in Central Asia.
Moreover, the withdrawal worked in Iran’s favour by putting one more nail in the coffin of an almost 80-year-old alliance between the United States and Iran’s arch-rival, Saudi Arabia.
Already angry at US President Joe Biden’s refusal to deal directly with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman because of the 2018 Saudi killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia saw the bungled withdrawal, along with the US failure to respond robustly to attacks on critical Gulf state infrastructure by Iran and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, as further evidence of America’s increasing unreliability as a security guarantor.
Last month’s revival of security talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia highlighted the arc that links the Ukrainian and Yemeni wars with the withdrawal.
Saudi Arabia is groping for an exit from an eight-year-long war in Yemen that has cost it significant reputational damage and raised questions about its military capabilities.
The talks with Iran broke off shortly after the US withdrawal. However, they were revived as Russia struggled to achieve some semblance of victory in Ukraine.
The timing highlighted that Iran’s options might be less curtailed by the Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Yemen wars than those of other regional players.
Ukraine has taken Russia out of the equation as a possible guarantor of security or an alternative to the United States as an arms supplier for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
That leaves Saudi Arabia worried about its ability to protect itself despite increased military prowess and an armory filled with some of the world’s most sophisticated weaponry, with no good options.
The kingdom may be looking at China but is likely to discover that it is looking at a power that still lacks the capability and the will to replace the United States and would likely extract a higher price for offering to guarantee regional security.
Few would argue that the scenes of tens of thousands at Kabul airport trying to flee Afghanistan as American troops withdrew inspired confidence in US protection.
The ability of the United States and Europe to bolster Ukrainian resistance will likely have mitigated to some degree the impact of the dramatic pictures from Kabul.
At the same time, Gulf states, if attacked, may not have the wherewithal of the Ukrainians if the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is anything to go by. That drives home the Gulf states’ dependence on a third-party security guarantor in the absence of confidence-inspiring multilateral, regional arrangements.
Kuwaitis largely fled Kuwait at the time while a US-led coalition forced Iraq to withdraw. In the wake of Ukraine, Russia is too preoccupied to take on other major military commitments, and China would not entertain the idea. That leaves the US for the foreseeable as the Gulf states’ only alternative.
Viewed from Tehran, the post-US withdrawal world is a different world in which the United States has been humbled and removed from one of its borders.
It is a world where the Taliban-governed Afghanistan is a more immediate problem for Iran than the Gulf states.
In recent days, Iran has reportedly moved additional military forces, including the army’s 88th armored division, to its border with Afghanistan amid rising tensions with the Taliban.
Iranian officials say border guards have acted with “restraint” in the face of alleged provocative actions by Taliban forces.
The troops were ordered to the border after Pakistani militants, based in eastern Afghanistan, stepped up their attacks inside Pakistan.
Last month, two Pakistani airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan killed at least 40 people, including some civilians. The United Nations said that 20 children were among the dead. The strikes occurred against areas believed to have been from where militants had killed seven soldiers in Pakistan.
Pakistan hasn’t confirmed the airstrikes and declined to comment on the civilian deaths but said earlier that “terrorists were using Afghan soil with impunity to carry out activities inside Pakistan.”
Anti-Iranian protests in Herat and Kabul and the stabbing by an Afghan national of three clerics in Iran also fueled tensions between the two countries.
The incidents cast a shadow over Iranian efforts to capitalise on the fallout in Central Asia of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Taliban’s acting minister for refugees and repatriations, Khalilurahman Haqqani, is expected to visit Tehran in the coming days in an effort to reduce tensions.
“Yemen and Ukraine are not major headaches for Iran. Afghanistan is,” said an Arab diplomat.
A version of this article was first published by the National University of Singapore’ Middle East Institute
The magnificent and lightening Russian victory in Ukraine reverberate the fail of USA to win Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam wars. Also I’m ashamed of being American. We need a great leader like President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
These provocations are fake, and they do not represent the true interests or will of the peoples of Afghanistan. It is undoubtedly the work of the Americans and Zionists, who have no qualms funding terrorism to achieve their goals of weakening Iran and Russia.
Oh look the Zion slave James M. Dorsey. “one more nail in the coffin of an almost 80-year-old alliance between the United States and Iran’s arch-rival, Saudi Arabia.” Nothing changed between the US and KSA. That nail went inside James’s asshole it seems like.
“as further evidence of America’s increasing unreliability as a security guarantor” The US didn’t “really” start the Yemen war but they did help KSA to invade Yemen and to this day the US gives intel to KSA to attack Yemen. KSA may have a shit army but they have money and weapons and slaves – the US can’t do much as well, they were halfway deep in shit, and with things in Ukraine in no way would the US support the KSA war in Yemen as much as they do now – BTW Zion joining KSA/UAE now.
“some of the world’s most sophisticated weaponry”. Did Pentagon fuk him? He is fuking rtded, so KSA has some of the world’s most “sophisticated weaponry” (MF google that shit), yet they can’t win a war in Yemen against Houthis. Yemen is sanctioned and the West starving them with Wahhabis openly btw.
“The ability of the United States and Europe to bolster Ukrainian resistance will likely have mitigated to some degree the impact of the dramatic pictures from Kabul.” “The ability of the United States and Europe to bolster Ukrainian resistance” 🤡🤡
“In recent days, Iran has reportedly moved additional military forces, including the army’s 88th armored division, to its border with Afghanistan amid rising tensions with the Taliban.” Because these fuking apes don’t understand the line between the two borders. Tell me why wouldn’t they?
“Yemen and Ukraine are not major headaches for Iran. Afghanistan is,” said an Arab diplomat.
There are about 3,380,000 million Afghans in Iran. Just think for a sec this motherfuker doesn’t even say that. Iran doesn’t have a problem with Afghanistan or Afghan – Taliban have problems and they are morons and still terrorists and want to kill Shia, it is a fact, what were you think of Wahhabis cuck suckers? Look at Afghanistan and you see that the Taliban doesn’t want to protect the Shia Afghans at all.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is host to one of the largest and most protracted urban refugee situations in the world and has provided asylum to refugees for over four decades.” To Western countries, 3,000 refugees mostly from Iraqi-Kurds was a nightmare. It is fuking crazy that Lebanon host so many people from Syria yet they don’t cry about it and they help Syria and fight ISIS, NATO-Zion pigs.
James M. Dorsey the clown Zion slave.
P.S the refugee number was from UNHCR in October 2020.
James Dorsey is an intelligent man. I hope that you reach him and stop being a basement dweller.
Ofc a Zion slave rides his d as well, The Times of Zion even posts his shit, you can read his shit buddy don’t be shy, we all know your intelligent level. Have you noticed he never says anything bad to Zion? Funny isn’t it, basement dweller.
Ukraine joins Afghanistan and Yemen? Well, it looks like them now…
Dumb artical,dumber to the fact that russian weapons are superior to usas in ever respect (period) The fact remains that the west are doomed to failure,like it or lump it you cannot defeat the fight in the man as opposed to the fight for sodomity and bogus irrellevant homosexual freedom,dorsey are you a dumb poof or are heterosexuals dumber than you wished them to be,mi6/cia assflogged!
The thing can be restored quickly. There is going to be a joint Iranian-Pakistani invasion and the jihadis of Taliban are replaced by a more moderate Muslim Brotherhood government.
A very rough outline but fair enough. Leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban was probably the best move the USA could make in Central Asia, very much reminding of the legend of the Apple of Discord in the sense of having now all powers with a regional interest vying for it, possibly against each other (while formerly they were mostly together against US occupation). It also has a uniquely Yankee element to it: the formation of a destabilizing “hornet nest”, as they tried to do with DAESH in Upper Mesopotamia, an ultra-patriarchal fanatic hornet nest nobody can really destroy unless they empower and arm women, as the Kurds did with great success.
As for Saudi Arabia, I’d guess China could be willing to replace the USA in the Persian Gulf, although admittedly their navy is much lighter, they already have a “string of pearls” pointing in that direction (as well as surrounding India and also pointing in the direction of the Red Sea and East Africa). China’s main maritime goal has been very clearly to secure the trade route to Arabia and Iran and will probably accept the challenge of stepping up that game with further naval military investment, but they obviously prefer the much cheaper and less risky diplomatic path nevertheless and will have to see profits if they make a deal with such a decadent regime as the Saudi one.
Anyway, I doubt the USA wants to allow any such replacement to happen, it’s rather Saudia flirting with “the enemy” for the sake of extracting concesions from Washington. But Uncle Sam will play its own game because they believe, with good reason, that Saudia is ultimately hostage to their designs and unable to effectively betray them, if for no other reason because they could with relative ease provoke a “color revolution” (or even a real one) in such a decadent theocracy (or just have a couple of royals assassinated until the pro-Washington one is in power instead, CIA-Mossad can do that rather easily).
IMO Saudi Arabia has ultimately its hands tied. They may play games but they know (or should know) that they can’t survive betraying the US Empire, which considers their alliance a keystone of their financial supremacy (now a bit weakened but still quite real).
Yes, however, the problem with the so called Kurds is not the Kurdishness itself but how some powers, whether in the region or foreign, are using that far-left ideology of the PKK in order to destabilize the Turkish-Iranian-Muslim Brotherhood alliance
How’s that bad from the viewpoint of empowering the peoples everywhere? I don’t like Islamo-fascism any bit more that I dislike Christo-fascism, incl. Ukro-nazism, and remember that Turkey is the main culprit of all the evils befallen on Syria, incl. DAESH, while the YPG-YPJ and their allies of the NSF are basically a self-defense militia which has a persistent truce and occasional collaboration with Baathist core Syria (in spite of having quite different political projects and attacking each other verbally, they also recognize each other as at least somewhat legitimate and sharing many common foes).
The issue is not bloc-ism (or “campism” as some call it), China’s imperialism is not in essence different of that of the USA and the other lesser imperialisms you mention are also comparable at smaller scale. That’s the problem of Capitalism: it is exploitative and tries to control manpower, markets and resources competitively, tending to bipolar world wars (hot or cold) and not solving the problems of Humanity at all.
Socialism instead is internationalist and cooperativist and all that is particularly true in the case of Rojava, the NSF and the Kurdish revolutionary movement at large, which seems to me as beacon of hope in a very dark era.