If I were Saudi Arabia’s MBS, the news out of Kabul would be making my heart go pit-a-pat. A conservative, undemocratic, Sunni religious government is taking form on the eastern frontier of his greatest enemy, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The reborn Taliban emirate comes equipped with a strong battle-tested army, now bolstered by surrendered American weapons. But it will need money and assistance on how to function in the modern world.
Saudi Arabia, together with its allies Kuwait and the UAE, has an abundance of the former and decades of experience with the latter. It also has a history of financing religious militancy in Afghanistan going back to the Mujahideen fight against Soviet occupation.
In 2013, these anti-democratic Gulf allies showered billions of dollars on Egypt after General Sisi overthrew its elected Muslim Brotherhood government. So they can surely come up with whatever the Taliban emirate needs to repair war damage in Afghanistan and reverse its election-based democratic governing system. And MBS won’t be disturbed by a little unfairness toward women or a few reprisals against people the Taliban don’t like, such as the Hazara Shi‘ites.
It will not be lost on any Saudi strategic thinker that throughout Iran’s long history, only Alexander the Great and the Muslim Arabs have conquered the country from the mountainous west. But its eastern frontier is spectacularly vulnerable. The Israelis might come to see things in a similar light.
So long as the United States was Afghanistan’s overlord, Iran had little reason to fear actual military adventures by its Gulf adversaries. Washington, after all, would firmly resist any attempt to draw it into yet another Middle Eastern war. Moreover, Iran’s support for Yemen’s Houthis on Saudi Arabia’s southern flank has caused endless consternation in Riyadh.
But if Saudi Arabia were to become the big brother of the Taliban, Iran would have to consider seriously the prospect of a two-front war. Just imagine the political impact of Iran’s foes stationing a squadron of nuclear-capable aircraft at the Bagram airbase.
What would be the downside of MBS making the Taliban an offer of support too good to be refused? Particularly if he also formalized a joint Saudi-Taliban agreement to suppress al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, which both parties see as dangerously disruptive movements despite some religious similarities? And perhaps extend to Afghanistan MBS’s public relations promise to improve, ever so slowly, the status of women?
Will Pakistan object? Will China? Will Russia? No, no, and no. As for Washington, the Saudis’ long-term friends in both political parties could easily see this outcome as making a tasty omelet out of broken eggs.
Richard W. Bulliet is professor emeritus in history at Columbia University.
Copyright ©2021 Richard Bulliet — distributed by Agence Global
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Released: 23 August 2021
Word Count: 436
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