Recently two important developments took place in international relations in Afghanistan and Middle-East. There was an intra Afghanistan peace talk (between Taliban and the Afghanistan government) and the signing of the Abraham Accords establishing normalized relations between Israel and UAE.  The current administration in USA is looking forward to complete withdrawal of troops from the Afghanistan as part of its poll promises. That can be done when the USA is sure that there are right kinds of people at the proper places with the right connections to maintain the fragile peace attained in Afghanistan. The peace in Afghanistan is referred as fragile as there have been killings by Taliban in south Afghanistan even after the latest peace talks in Doha. The .troop’s withdrawal was delayed and postponed in 2013-14 after there were reports of Green on Blue attacks in Afghanistan. This probably forced USA to rethink its strategy of withdrawal from Afghanistan. It has been of utmost importance for the USA that Afghanistan does not turn up into another Iraq which gave birth to ISIS with warring and scrounging by multiple parties. USA also knows that the cost of keeping the troops (more than 10000) stationed there during this pandemic can be all the more painful on the finances and the families of the soldiers. On the other hand, there is the looming worry over the expansionist tendencies of Russia under Putin which made its ambitions clear during the Crimean annexation in 2014.

This seemingly demanded a proper course of action by the USA, and for this it needed a trustworthy partner in the region. There can not be any other country near to that geographical region that has a wider and stronger trust of USA than Israel. The Jewish state was the proper candidate who could help the USA in this situation.

Israel had remained as the ‘nation to go to’ in the Middle-East for the USA. Its relations with its neighbors were generally kept under wraps. In international media discourse this dynamic is identified as the Mistress Syndrome. Israel has also been a main partner of USA in the balance of power in this region of the world. Signing of the Abraham accords can be treated as a watershed moment in the Middle East dynamics, almost as important as the Egypt-Israel Peace treaty of 1979.

The chronological order of the recent Afghan peace talks and the Abraham accords is worth underlining. It may be that USA laid its back up plan in terms of the non-US troops which would be left on the grounds after its troop’s withdrawal from the Afghanistan. It already has led troops from UAE on the ground in the Afghan terrain. It looks like USA is trying to leverage the Israeli relations in Middle-East, Levant region and north-east Africa that have been kept secret over the decades. The often-confusing relationships between Israel and its neighbours has made the Jewish state deft in dealing with countries with often diametrically opposite standpoints. Hence a distant involvement of Israel is a must in this complex peace process.

It is important for the USA to maintain the stability in Afghanistan, however weak it is. The peace should not get lost away after the USA withdraws its troops completely. USA may be trying to form an Israeli-Arab alliance (especially with UAE) to counter the resurgent Taliban threat. The control in this alliance will essentially be in the hands of the Israel as they have observed and learnt the art of Constructive ambiguity developed by Henry Kissinger of USA especially during the Israeli peace talks with Egypt. (Constructive ambiguity is basically playing with the linguistics in peace process which presents different perceptions of the same statement for different parties and which helps in lengthening of the talks over years and decades.)

To grasp how Israel forms a key player in this new development one needs to understand what relations exactly Israel had with its immediate neighbours in the region. In the late 1950s and early 1960s there had been secret ties between Israel, Iran, Turkey, Ethiopia and probably Sudan. The association of Israel with these nations was known as Periphery Alliance. After the Yom Kippur war of 1973, Egypt and Israel settled for peace which was mediated by the USA in 1979.  In 1994, Israel and Jordan signed peace treaty which stabilized the relation between them despite the occasionally erupting tension over the Al-Aqsa mosque. Israel had to learn how to use the differences between its not so friendly neighbours in order to get an overall peace or rather an absence of direct conflict. This was done by Israel to prevent the formation of a pan-Arabic ideology under Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. The backdoor involvement of Israel in the North Yemeni Civil war of 1962-70 becomes crucial to understand in this regard. In Yemen, republicans led by Abdullah as-Sallah carried out a coup and dethroned the Imam Muhammed al-Badr, who was the newly crowned king. Egypt under G A Nasser had supported the republican movement in order to project his image as the leader of the Arab world. The ousted royalists apart from getting support from Jordan and Saudi Arabia got covert support from Israel and Britain. Israel was also involved in assisting the Kurds in Iraq in their anti-Baath fight in the mid-1960s. During the civil crisis percolating in Lebanon between the Maronite Christians and the Muslims, Israel provided secret support for the Maronites due to their long-standing fear of pan Arabian ideology. This became known to the world in 1982 (when Israel invaded south Lebanon) after which the Maronites in Lebanon were disaffected and estranged. After the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 between Israel and the PLO, there were gradual opening and normalization of Israeli relations with many of its neighbours like Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania and some of the gulf-states.

In this regard, the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE is looked on with optimism by many. On the other hand, the accord has also drawn criticism from observers who opine that it can probably entangle the USA more into the local tussle between Shias and Sunnis. The critics also point out that the accord does not provide a solution to a more indispensable and important issue for Israel, which is its relationship with the Palestinians. Interestingly the Vatican has remained silent on the Abraham Accords given that it had supported the Camp David Accords of 1978 and the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Could the intention behind the Abraham Accords have been truly to forge an UAE- Israeli alliance to monitor the security scenario in Afghanistan? This is a transitionary phase in the Afghan history where success of intelligence architecture would matter a lot. It might be that Israel would be the trainer for the Afghan agency Khad in this regard with UAE providing the personnel and troop support.

It is worthwhile noting that there are talks about the possibility of the sale of F-35 jets by USA to UAE. That can provide UAE an advantage in terms of its air superiority. This talk of F-35 sales to UAE would probably not in any way hamper or downgrade the congressionally mandated QME criterion for Israel. QME implies that Israel will always have a Qualitative Military Edge over its neighbours and it is never discounted by USA in dealing with the other Middle-East countries. (Israel even has the advantage of the protection by the veto power in case any of its neighbours like Palestine raises issues in the UN related to Israeli bombing. This protection is identified as Negroponte doctrine.)

Presence of legislative structures like the QME for Israel and the setting up of the Israeli-UAE relations just prior to the Afghan peace talks can mean that USA is now trusting UAE to be a local controller over the security in Afghanistan. UAE had already put its troops in Afghanistan under the command of USA and had boosted it further in 2018. This role as part of the coalition in the continuance of the War on Terror would probably be performed by the UAE under the guidance of Israel. UAE & Saudi Arabia who have been known to support Wahabism had demonstrated their animosity towards the Taliban after the group was heavily pounded by US-led coalition forces in the War on terror which began after the 9/11. Main drive for UAE surely has been economic given their oil relations with the USA and other NATO countries. Hence, it seems natural in this backdrop that USA before pulling out its troops will ensure passing on the baton to someone who can act on its behalf. After all, Afghanistan is a country with rich mineral deposits in places like Hajigak, Zarakshan and Badakshan, which is not unknown to the corporations in the USA. The prying eyes of China are also looking for opportunities in this war battered land. In order to maintain its supremacy, USA has to enter into a new age Great Game in the region after having secured it through its military allies. This time the great game will not be between the British and the Russians but between the USA and the China. The Afghanistan peace process and the Abraham accords essentially point in that direction.