The Taliban's Afghan Takeover Might Have Consequences For Yemen

Andrew Korybko | South24

The Taliban's successful blitz across Afghanistan surprised most observers who hadn't expected America's allies there to collapse so quickly, let alone within less than two weeks since the group started its spree of capturing regional capitals. This dramatic development will have far-reaching geostrategic consequences, but of particular interest is how it might influence events in West Asia. This dimension has been under-studied but is no less important than the consequences that the Taliban's Afghan takeover will have on Central and South Asia.

Firstly, America's Arab allies might no longer regard Washington as a reliable guarantor of their security. Not only has US President Biden put pressure on his country's traditional Saudi ally to scale down and ultimately stop its ongoing operations in Yemen, but he just abandoned America's Afghan allies to the Taliban despite that group having been one of his government's worst enemies for the past two decades. This suggests a cold approach to regional geopolitics where perceived national interests trump morals, ethics, values, and optics. 

The US' presumed interests in West Asia nowadays largely rest in renegotiating the Iranian nuclear deal, to which end America might be willing to make backroom deals with the Islamic Republic. The Biden Administration believes, whether rightly or wrongly, that it should revive the regional policy of its Obama-era predecessors in restoring a sense of balance to America's strategy there. Instead of always supporting its traditional Arab allies out of principle, it's willing to compromise on their interests to improve ties with Tehran. 

If this assessment is accurate, and the Biden Administration's approach to Yemen suggests that there's some veracity to this observation, then it might be inevitable that the outcome of that war-torn country's conflict could be largely determined through a backroom deal with Iran. In particular, Washington might support the Houthis being cautiously welcomed into the international community as legitimate political stakeholders similar to how it nowadays treats the Taliban in Afghanistan. 

Regardless of how pragmatic of a policy one might believe this to be, it would arguably be against the stated interests of the Saudi-led coalition and could lead to a “loss of face” there similar to what the internationally recognized government in Afghanistan just experienced. Some in Kabul accused the US of going behind their back to legitimize the Taliban without first consulting the country's authorities and even sometimes pressuring them to comply with their ally's efforts to this end such as through the contentious release of Taliban prisoners. 

Along the same lines, the US might soon ramp up its pressure on Saudi Arabia to do something similar following the precedent that it's just pioneered in Afghanistan, though this time for the purpose of improving relations with Iran through their speculative backroom deal on Yemen aimed at advancing the Iranian nuclear renegotiation process. Without being assured of their American ally's full support, which was already questionable ever since Biden entered office and changed the US' policy, Riyadh might have to compromise. 

Put another way, what just happened in Afghanistan might not be a fluke of American policy but the beginning of an entirely new approach for resolving seemingly intractable regional conflicts. The emerging model might be that the US is willing to trade its allies' interests in order to advance its own perceived national ones at their expense. In Afghanistan, this led to accusations of selling out Kabul in order to rapidly redeploy US forces there to the Asia-Pacific in order to contain China, while in Yemen it might be related to the Iranian nuclear deal. 

The internationally recognized Afghan government was powerless to push back against this American scheme since it had earlier failed to independently diversify its security stakeholders. India couldn't ever meaningfully intervene in any conventional sense for obvious geopolitical reasons related to its inability to transit through neighboring Pakistan's airspace while Iran was unable to do much since it was too embroiled in proxy wars elsewhere in West Asia. Moreover, the Taliban swiftly captured all border outposts to cut off any proxy support. 

In the Yemeni context, Saudi Arabia is also struggling to independently diversify the security stakeholders in its campaign. The UAE's military drawdown a few years back pretty much left the Kingdom to fend for itself in the northern part of the country. It's true that some South Yemeni forces still fight against the Houthis as part of the coalition's efforts, but it's not the same as when Abu Dhabi was more actively engaged in the conflict there. This development coupled with Biden's new policy towards the war put significant pressure on Saudi Arabia.