Everyone is going to have to come around to some level of normalization when they realize the cost and potential futility for any alternative. The costs to isolating Afghanistan are the next highest in Pakistan, after Afghanistan itself.
I don’t agree that we should support helping their military, only help them keep law and order, if only to prevent others from filing this role. But supporting their state function, while keeping their “military” still at the militia level is probably the best course of action, IMHO.
Maintaining the connection between Afghanistan and the outside world through trade and incentives is the best way to make it worth their while to stay good neighbors. The afghans don’t have to like Pakistan or accept the border, they just don’t have to challenge it. We need to always retain the ability to carry out punitive strikes if they forget it.
So in this incident we can say Bilawal is looking at the national interests the same way his mother did, when accepting the Taliban control parts of Afghanistan and we have to deal with them to achieve our national interests. But in my opinion, Bilalwal should not get carried away in what he says. Pakistan needs to stop carrying Afghanistan’s water. Have we not learned, we don’t need to be forever internationally maligned by incidents in Afghanistan by being seen supporting them, especially when they aren’t even willing to accept the border.
Let the Afghans be answerable for their own government.
If Pakistan is to help the Afghans and help the Talibs government survive and have a chance at international recognition, they need to support our needs for a rail link between Peshawar and Uzbekistan ASAP, and start opening up mining contracts for Pakistani and international (especially western and GCC) firms. Then any external supporters of Daesh will have to back off, knowing the interests of the West, GCC, and China are invested in Afghan trade, because they wouldn’t want to take on the three largest trading entities. If the Afghans help us become more useful to the world, we can be more useful for the Afghans