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Dissecting Kabul’s “do more” demand.
Global Village Space |
Diwan Rayan |
The demand by the Afghan government that Pakistan should go after the Afghan Taliban, might seem simple on the face of it, but actually, it is mired in complexity. Pakistan is facing the heat all around for the last four years or more but still, the institution of the state, especially the military establishment is undeterred. This is being used by India as yet another opportunity to defame Pakistan at the international political level.
This demand from Afghanistan is flawed at least on two grounds if not more. Firstly Afghan Taliban are not a direct threat to Pakistan and secondly, Pakistan will not be much interested to commit the same mistake of bringing a war belonging to others again to its land by engaging the Afghan Taliban. Many a times chief of Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf, Imran Khan has pointed out, that there was no terrorism in Pakistan, prior to 2004, when Islamabad first engaged the militants in the tribal areas of Pakistan, wreaking havoc on the civilians and military personnel and installations resulting in a death toll more than 80,000 as quoted by “Body Count: Casualty Figures after 10 Years of the “War on Terror”” in 2015.
Pakistan did not oppose the rise of the Taliban, for it brought a semblance of stability in a constant power-scuffle in the mid-1990s
The international order is brutal and unfair. Just 30 years ago Pakistan helped the US to bolster these Mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the invading forces of Soviet Union. Not long ago they were loved and lauded to be the toughest fighters on the roughest terrain. But it all became once upon a time and the heroes turned into monsters without much crime on their part as Al-Qaida was the accused not Taliban. When Taliban came into power in the early 90s, it wasn’t too late before the US has totally vanished from the scene. Perhaps, if the US had taken responsibility at that time, it might have been that they weren’t required to fight such a tiring war, waging around 16 years. But it was left to only Pakistan’s fragile shoulders to handle and clean the mess. Pakistan, at that time, was passing through a period of political turmoil.
Read more:Pulling the plug on Afghanistan
Pakistan did not oppose the rise of the Taliban, for it brought a semblance of stability in a constant power-scuffle in the mid-1990s.The Taliban did bring peace to a war ravaged country for a good period of time.
Untenable jingoism
But while analyzing the current situation in the region, our analysts tend to forget this previous settlement. While blaming Pakistan for not engaging these Taliban the high ups in Kabul tend to forget that while Taliban were ruling, Pakistan never pushed the Afghan refugees to go back, maybe the feeling down under was that the arrangement wasn’t permanent. Again, Kabul also tends to forget that the Taliban group is predominantly made up of Pashtuns, and by militarily engaging those, the repercussions will spill over into Pakistan as well which has a significant Pashtun population.But it is unreasonable for a country to ask its neighbor to militarily engage the most potent political and military force in Taliban. Had it been so easy, we already would have an outline of US policy on Afghanistan sitting on the table. It is said that US President Trump and his advisors are seriously frustrated for not reaching a consensus on a policy.
The line which Kabul is towing isn’t making much sense. A country trying to move out of internal and external wars for about 40 years is directly threatening one of their neighbors instead of dying out to create an everlasting relation. A neighbor which has been a helping hand despite its limitations constantly for the last 40 years. Kabul is trying to give the world the impression that Pakistan is destabilizing Afghanistan owing to concerns over growing Kabul-Delhi relations, where as in Pakistan you won’t see a single effort to subdue this relation. Probably that’s something Pakistan would be least concerned about. It seems like Kabul, at the moment, is more interested in destabilizing or defacing Pakistan rather than stabilizing Afghanistan. For me, at least, Kabul is going nowhere with this line of action. They can only create hatred between the citizens of their countries and nothing more. It’s not wise trying to put neighbor’s place on fire and not tending towards the bursting fire in your own home.
But China is also busy in mining outside Kabul and it has bought rights to mining several other rare minerals in Afghanistan. The value of these rare minerals sitting in Afghanistan to be unearthed is suspected to be around USD 1 trillion.
Pakistan is playing pretty wisely here. Turning a deaf ear to the pointless blame game and focusing on long term goals is probably the best choice at this time. Pakistan is not acting on the “do more” demands from US or Kabul, probably with the reason that if the two are not interested in what Pakistan is dealing with currently and the ramifications it will have to face after acting on the do more demands, why should Pakistan push itself into it. Thus instead of US and Afghanistan, Pakistan is trying to work along with China. Russia is also interested to play its part in this mini cold war not only to exert its influence the regional matters but also to counter the ISIS Khorasan, which is continuously gaining strength in Afghanistan.
Read full article......
Dissecting Kabul’s “do more” demand.
Global Village Space |
Diwan Rayan |
The demand by the Afghan government that Pakistan should go after the Afghan Taliban, might seem simple on the face of it, but actually, it is mired in complexity. Pakistan is facing the heat all around for the last four years or more but still, the institution of the state, especially the military establishment is undeterred. This is being used by India as yet another opportunity to defame Pakistan at the international political level.
This demand from Afghanistan is flawed at least on two grounds if not more. Firstly Afghan Taliban are not a direct threat to Pakistan and secondly, Pakistan will not be much interested to commit the same mistake of bringing a war belonging to others again to its land by engaging the Afghan Taliban. Many a times chief of Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf, Imran Khan has pointed out, that there was no terrorism in Pakistan, prior to 2004, when Islamabad first engaged the militants in the tribal areas of Pakistan, wreaking havoc on the civilians and military personnel and installations resulting in a death toll more than 80,000 as quoted by “Body Count: Casualty Figures after 10 Years of the “War on Terror”” in 2015.
Pakistan did not oppose the rise of the Taliban, for it brought a semblance of stability in a constant power-scuffle in the mid-1990s
The international order is brutal and unfair. Just 30 years ago Pakistan helped the US to bolster these Mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the invading forces of Soviet Union. Not long ago they were loved and lauded to be the toughest fighters on the roughest terrain. But it all became once upon a time and the heroes turned into monsters without much crime on their part as Al-Qaida was the accused not Taliban. When Taliban came into power in the early 90s, it wasn’t too late before the US has totally vanished from the scene. Perhaps, if the US had taken responsibility at that time, it might have been that they weren’t required to fight such a tiring war, waging around 16 years. But it was left to only Pakistan’s fragile shoulders to handle and clean the mess. Pakistan, at that time, was passing through a period of political turmoil.
Read more:Pulling the plug on Afghanistan
Pakistan did not oppose the rise of the Taliban, for it brought a semblance of stability in a constant power-scuffle in the mid-1990s.The Taliban did bring peace to a war ravaged country for a good period of time.
Untenable jingoism
But while analyzing the current situation in the region, our analysts tend to forget this previous settlement. While blaming Pakistan for not engaging these Taliban the high ups in Kabul tend to forget that while Taliban were ruling, Pakistan never pushed the Afghan refugees to go back, maybe the feeling down under was that the arrangement wasn’t permanent. Again, Kabul also tends to forget that the Taliban group is predominantly made up of Pashtuns, and by militarily engaging those, the repercussions will spill over into Pakistan as well which has a significant Pashtun population.But it is unreasonable for a country to ask its neighbor to militarily engage the most potent political and military force in Taliban. Had it been so easy, we already would have an outline of US policy on Afghanistan sitting on the table. It is said that US President Trump and his advisors are seriously frustrated for not reaching a consensus on a policy.
The line which Kabul is towing isn’t making much sense. A country trying to move out of internal and external wars for about 40 years is directly threatening one of their neighbors instead of dying out to create an everlasting relation. A neighbor which has been a helping hand despite its limitations constantly for the last 40 years. Kabul is trying to give the world the impression that Pakistan is destabilizing Afghanistan owing to concerns over growing Kabul-Delhi relations, where as in Pakistan you won’t see a single effort to subdue this relation. Probably that’s something Pakistan would be least concerned about. It seems like Kabul, at the moment, is more interested in destabilizing or defacing Pakistan rather than stabilizing Afghanistan. For me, at least, Kabul is going nowhere with this line of action. They can only create hatred between the citizens of their countries and nothing more. It’s not wise trying to put neighbor’s place on fire and not tending towards the bursting fire in your own home.
But China is also busy in mining outside Kabul and it has bought rights to mining several other rare minerals in Afghanistan. The value of these rare minerals sitting in Afghanistan to be unearthed is suspected to be around USD 1 trillion.
Pakistan is playing pretty wisely here. Turning a deaf ear to the pointless blame game and focusing on long term goals is probably the best choice at this time. Pakistan is not acting on the “do more” demands from US or Kabul, probably with the reason that if the two are not interested in what Pakistan is dealing with currently and the ramifications it will have to face after acting on the do more demands, why should Pakistan push itself into it. Thus instead of US and Afghanistan, Pakistan is trying to work along with China. Russia is also interested to play its part in this mini cold war not only to exert its influence the regional matters but also to counter the ISIS Khorasan, which is continuously gaining strength in Afghanistan.
Read full article......
Dissecting Kabul’s “do more” demand.
