U.S. rivals revel in Afghan withdrawal -- and dance around its challenges

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

71% : In Iran, too, the U.S. withdrawal has been a gift.
68% : The then-Soviet Union invaded and occupied Afghanistan for 10 years until 1989, and its withdrawal was also viewed as an international humiliation and a bellwether of the country's imminent disintegration with the fall of communism.
61% : Russia, China and Iran view recent developments as a clear demonstration that American international influence, which appeared unassailable after 9/11 garnered America almost universal international support and sympathy, is on the wane.
54% : Now, Russia, China and Iran have laid the groundwork for relations with the country's new rulers.
53% : "They consider Afghan territory as a base to transfer their activity to the states of Central Asia, to Chinese Xinjiang, to the north of Iran, in the direction of India," he said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestia on Aug. 19.
52% : But the overt schadenfreude obscures a delicate dance by Russia, China and Iran, which are balancing potential opportunities presented by the U.S. withdrawal, with the more overt risks -- namely the spread of extremism.
46% : At the crossroads of South Asia and Central Asia, Afghanistan is hemmed in by China to the east and Iran to the west.
46% : "We see the security of Afghanistan as the security of Iran and the insecurity in Afghanistan as the insecurity of Iran," said Abolfazl Amouei, a spokesman for the influential parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy.
45% : "Iran has established contacts with the Taliban in order to maintain the security of its borders," he said in an interview before the Taliban takeover.
44% : That Russia, China and Iran look to be stepping up in Afghanistan should not come as a surprise, according to Barnett Rubin, a former senior adviser to the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the State Department.
44% : Iran, which almost went to war with the Taliban in 1998 after they killed 10 Iranian diplomats, has since improved its ties with the group and is now one of Afghanistan's biggest trading partners.
44% : Tehran also had hosted talks between the Taliban and representatives of the then-Afghan government.
38% : The Taliban announced Tuesday an all-male interim government, stacked with veterans from their hard-line regime in the 1990s, a far cry from the inclusive vision that the international community -- including Russia, China and Iran -- had called for.
36% : That Al Qaeda plotted the 9/11 attacks from Afghanistan and under the protection of the Taliban will not have been lost on the leaders of Russia, China and Iran.
27% : The proximity of Russia, China and Iran make them wary of getting sucked into Afghanistan and ending up shouldering responsibility in a country that has been devastated by more than 40 years of war.
27% : They are also concerned about a flood of Afghan refugees as Iran grapples with its worst coronavirus outbreak of the pandemic.

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