Maybe Pakistan’s establishment will ditch the Taliban, maybe it won’t
Decades old suspicions between Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to foil efforts made at rapprochement. This despite a dire need on the part of the two countries to join hands against terrorist networks who are the common enemy. Many Afghans continue to wonder if Pakistan is really serious in fighting the terrorist networks. Some believe the Pakistan army, which determines Pakistan’s Afghan policy, is still using these networks to foist a government of its choice on the neighbouring country. After all who created, trained and launched the Taliban inside Afghanistan?
But do we really have a common enemy?
Till the terrorists attacked the APS there was no real consensus among political parties in Pakistan over the terrorists being an enemy. The APC convened soon after the PML-N take over decided to negotiate with ‘misled Pakistanis’ who according to Ch Nisar were patriotic Pakistanis. The talks continued despite bomb blasts and suicide attacks targeting innocent civilians, personnel of law enforcement agencies and the Pakistan army. Operation Zarb-e-Azb was initiated not with the assent of the government but on the orders of the new COAS who thought the terrorists were getting too big for their boots.
Even after the operation had been launched in North Waziristan for months no concrete measures were undertaken by the PML-N government to eliminate the terrorists inside the cities. Similarly no effort was made by provincial government led by other parties to supplement the military operation in urban areas. Parliament gave no thought to the eradication of extremist thinking in society.
Till the terrorists attacked the APS there was no real consensus among political parties in Pakistan over the terrorists being an enemy
It was under pressure from the army that another APC was convened to formulate the National Action Plan (NAP). The Apex Committees comprising civil and military leadership on the provincial level to oversee the implementation of the NAP were the result of prodding from the same quarters. Foot dragging on the part of the federal and provincial governments has continued to stand in the way of the full implementation of NAP. NACTA, which was to collate the intelligence gathered by different agencies and coordinate their activities, remained inoperative till the first instalment of funds was delivered to the interior ministry in November this year.
Despite claims that the operation against the terrorist networks was even-handed, cherry-picking continued to be the hallmark of the operation. For nearly a year the interior ministry failed to supply the provincial governments a consolidated list of the terrorist outfits. Haqqani network was not banned and other terrorist outfits continued to be active under new names. Some of these outfits are active in Afghanistan also.
The cherry-picking has particularly added to the already existing suspicions in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan has other grievances also. Afghans are unhappy with Pakistan for treating their country as a backyard. Till a few years back Pakistan’s military leaders talked about the need for strategic depth with an implicit belief that Pakistan had a right to be accommodated by Afghanistan. While the term is avoided now, the patronising attitude, characteristic of colonising states, persists.
Pakistan’s demand of a friendly government in Afghanistan also causes suspicions. How would Pakistan react if India predicated good relations with having a friendly government in Pakistan, they ask? Why does Pakistan oppose Afghan trucks carrying goods to India, thus putting limits on its sovereign right to trade with whichever country it likes? How would Pakistan react if Kabul barred Pakistani trucks from carrying goods from Pakistan to Central Asia? Why should Afghanistan consider Pakistan’s enemy as its own enemy? If Pakistan has no objection to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf countries and China trading with and making big investments in India, why can’t Kabul do the same?
There are also problems on the Afghan side. A number of politicians, a section of media and the Afghan national security bureaucracy are opposed to improvement of relations.
President Karzai, who visited Pakistan scores of times for help against the terrorists and later for assistance in reaching a compromise with the Taliban, finally concluded that Pakistan’s establishment was being unhelpful because it wanted to use the Talban as a lever to install a pliant regime after the US withdrawal. He is now deadly opposed to any dealing with Pakistan.
What is more Karzai is not prepared to see Ashraf Ghani succeed where he himself failed and thus consolidate his hold on power. It is difficult for Ghani to ignore Karzai because many more Afghan politicians call on the former president every day than on the man who occupies the seat now.
A stronger opposition to better ties with Pakistan comes from the non-Pakhtun political and military leaders. They faced the brunt of the Afghan Taliban duly supported by Pakistan’s establishment and by terrorist networks like LeJ. These people hold important positions in the Afghan government and army.
The solution the international community including Pakistan is offering to Afghanistan is basically untenable and would turn out to be a strategic failure
There is a widespread perception among the Afghan political and military leadership and intelligence agencies that attacks inside Afghanistan are being conducted with the connivance of those who matter in Pakistan.
Ashraf Ghani, however, insisted on checking the sincerity of the Pakistani establishment himself. He made talks with Pakistan a priority. In the process he took measures that other Afghan politicians had shrunk from. He even put his political future at stake. Ghani held several meetings with the COAS and the ISI chief and went straight to the GHQ on his maiden visit to Pakistan. He agreed to send Afghan cadets to Pakistan Military Academy. The Afghan army chief was sent to address the passing out parade at Kakul. Under Ghani the NDS agreed to sign a landmark MoU with the ISI for intelligence cooperation to disallow terrorists from using each other’s land for subversive actions against each other.
By June there was an end to Ghani’s enthusiasm. After the bloody attacks inside Kabul and his call to Pakistan to arrest the Taliban remaining unheeded, he declared that what needed to be given priority are peace talks with Pakistan rather than the Taliban. The implication was that Pakistan was conducting a secret war with Afghanistan.
Can Pakistan’s establishment ditch the Taliban to have good relations with Afghanistan? So far the answer has been in the negative.
The solution the international community including Pakistan is offering to Afghanistan is basically untenable and would turn out to be a strategic failure. Pakistan’s religious parties also wanted reconciliation with the TTP and would have liked it to be made a part of the government. There were elements in the PML-N also open to the idea. This was unacceptable to Pakistan’s civil society and was rejected by both the parliament and the army. We are proposing a solution for Afghanistan which we have ourselves rejected as unacceptable for us. Does it make sense?