LONDON (Reuters) – The chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has raised questions for its Arab allies in the Middle East about whether or not they can trust Washington, a senior Arab Gulf official said Monday.
US allies fear the return of the Taliban and the vacuum left by the chaotic retreat from the West will allow al-Qaeda militants to settle in Afghanistan 20 years after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Taliban. United States.
“Afghanistan is an earthquake, a devastating earthquake, and we will be left with this for a very, very long time,” the Arab Gulf official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of diplomacy.
“Can we really depend on an American security umbrella for the next 20 years? I think that’s very problematic right now, really very problematic.”
U.S. allies in the U.S. Gulf find the way U.S. foreign policy appears to oscillate with problematic “180-degree changes” and fears militants will settle in Afghanistan, the official said.
The official said the withdrawal from the United States had sent a message to militants around the world who only had to continue the fight.
“We don’t know how this Afghan regime will turn out: we think it will probably be the Taliban itself. A little smarter in the world, but not much,” the official said.
The official said that if there was a geopolitical struggle over Afghanistan, it would be between China and Pakistan, on the one hand, and Russia, Iran and India, on the other.
The United States, the official said, would not be part of that struggle.
“If there is a geopolitical struggle over Afghanistan, we will see Pakistan and China on one side and we will see India, Iran and Russia on the other,” the official said.
“And I don’t think Americans are part of the geopolitical struggle over Afghanistan.”
(Report by Guy Faulconbridge, edited by Alistair Smout)