What the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan means for America’s influence in West Asia

In the 19th century, the phrase “The Great Game” was used to describe competition for power and influence in Afghanistan, and neighbouring central and South Asia territories, between the British and Russian empires.

Neither side prevailed in what became known as the “graveyard of empires”.

Two centuries later, an American superpower has been reminded of a similar reality.

The Afghanistan debacle, in which a 300,000-strong United States-trained and equipped Afghan army collapsed in hours serves as a reminder of the limits of American power in the wider West Asia.

US President Joe Biden may be enduring the sharpest criticism for a disastrously executed withdrawal. But there is plenty of blame to go around, dating back to the original ill-fated decision to “nation-build” a country that has resisted outside interference for thousands of years.

After the fall of Kabul and the hasty US withdrawal from a country on which it had squandered $1 trillion, the question remains: what next for West Asia?

This is a question whose arc stretches from Morocco in the west to Pakistan in the east, from Turkey in the north down into the Gulf and across to the Horn of Africa.

Every corner of West Asia and North Africa will be touched in some way by the failure of American authority in Afghanistan, the longest war in its history.

America’s reckoning is also shared…

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