Former president Pervez Musharraf on Monday said the United States (US) has blundered through South Asia over the past quarter-century, committing three major errors that have destabilised the region and led to the rise in international terrorism.
The first mistake was back in 1989. Having defeated the Soviet Union with the help of Pakistan and the Afghan mujahideen, the Americans abandoned Afghanistan and distanced themselves from Pakistan. To add insult to injury, the US also developed strategic relations with India, Pakistan’s longtime rival, said Musharraf in an article in a US Magazine published on Monday.
Here are some excerpts from the article.
The United States completely switched sides: while Pakistan was its strategic partner since 1948, now India was its primary regional ally. Pakistan, meanwhile, was slapped with sanctions.
The second US blunder was its attempt to isolate the Taliban once they came to power. Pakistan was the only country that recognized the Taliban when they established a government in 1996. When US president Bill Clinton came to Pakistan in 2000, he was almost reprimanding my country for dealing with the Taliban, and he urged Pakistan to sever diplomatic relations with them.
I suggested a different strategy: the world and the US should recognise the Taliban and open diplomatic missions in Afghanistan. They should work with the Taliban to moderate their behaviour. Clinton didn’t agree, of course, and the US continued its policy of isolation.
A US policy of engagement could have prevented all the destruction that would come later. Had US diplomats built ties to the Taliban at this point, maybe we could have also resolved the Osama bin Laden tangle, because we could have jointly put pressure on Taliban leader Mullah Omar and the Taliban government. Unfortunately, it was only Pakistan, and we were alone. I sent five delegations of all kinds of people, including religious leaders, to persuade Mullah Omar to abandon bin Laden. If there had also been diplomatic relations with the United States and other Western countries, we could have put even more pressure on him. And maybe the 9/11 attacks would not have taken place. It’s a big thing that I’m saying, but I believe it.
Following the 9/11 attacks, the US and its allies attacked Afghanistan and defeated the Taliban. Then the US made its third blunder: it failed to convert its military victory in Afghanistan into a political victory. It forged a government in Kabul that could not win the support of the population, resulting in the resurgence of the Taliban in 2005 and 2006. We needed to install a government that was dominated by the Pashtun, because Pashtun are the largest Afghan community.
But because the US had defeated the Taliban with the help of the Northern Alliance, which was primarily made up of ethnic minorities, it unfortunately felt compelled to install them in government. I was of the view that the United States first had to bring the Pashtun onboard and use them to defeat the Taliban. I coined a term at that time, all Taliban are Pashtun, but all Pashtun are not Taliban.
But the United States didn’t listen. The Americans installed a government in Kabul with the Northern Alliance, and all the Pashtun who were initially not a part of the Taliban felt alienated. They gradually started to gravitate toward the Taliban, resulting in the group’s resurgence in 2005 and 2006. This was the United States’ biggest blunder, but it persisted on going down this path and continues doing so even now. This is a grave mistake, and unless it is corrected, we will not be able to make progress.
