The Gulf in Afghanistan

Context: The idea that great powers can shepherd regional actors towards pre-defined goals in Afghanistan is an illusion. There are too many independent actors in the region with high stakes in the country.

Background

• Recently the meetings of the “extended troika”  (US, Russia and China) in Doha, Qatar, are apparently aimed at reversing the current dangerous turn towards anarchy in Afghanistan.
• However, the exclusion of regional leaders and especially India, from the talks leaves them inadequate to address the diverse challenge in the region due to the involvement of multiple stakeholders.
• Any discussion of Afghanistan invokes two common metaphors — the “great game” or the “graveyard of empires”. These, however, tend to mask the significant role of the regional actors in Afghanistan’s evolution.

Regional actors in Afghanistan’s evolution

• Qatar: Doha, the capital of Qatar, is now the main venue for the so-called peace talks on Afghanistan is a useful reminder of the regional role
• Qatar’s activism underscores the importance of the Gulf in shaping the geopolitics of Afghanistan.
• Qatar wants to legitimise the Taliban at the expense of the current political order as it is very much part of its promotion of political Islam in the Greater Middle East and the subcontinent.
• Saudi and UAE: After the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan at the end of 1979, Saudi Arabia poured in significant resources to support the US-Pak mobilisation of jihad in the 1980s.
• When the Taliban took charge of Afghanistan in 1996, Saudi and UAE were the only countries other than Pakistan to recognise the new political dispensation.
• In recent years, Saudi Arabia and the UAE had sought to promote political reconciliation in Afghanistan but had little success in nudging the Taliban towards moderation.
• Iran: Since the 1990’s it has worked with Russia and India to back the anti-Taliban coalition.
• Iran also extended support for Washington’s efforts to oust the Taliban from power after the 9/11 attacks.
• Russia had invited Iran to join the extended troika meeting in Doha this week, but Tehran was unwilling.

Conclusion: 

• There are too many independent actors in the region with high stakes in Afghanistan. They will figure out ways and means to cope with the new Afghan dynamic. India’s intensifying consultations with Iran is one example. 
• Saudi Arabia and the UAE, whose interests are threatened by the Taliban’s religious extremism, are not going to sit back forever. Integration of the Gulf into India’s regional security calculus is now likely to be a permanent feature.