Would US do more this time?

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Paving the way for peace

 

 

Peace in Afghanistan is not only vital for Kabul and Islamabad but also for the international community. This explains the arrival in Islamabad of a US bipartisan Congressional delegation led by Senator John McCain, Chairman Senate Armed Services Committee. The purpose behind the visit is to discuss the recent hiatus in Pak-Afghan relations. That the delegation came on the invitation of Gen Raheel Sharif indicates Pakistan’s keenness to resolve the issue. The general underlined the security challenges faced by Pakistan and the need for an effective border management across the long and porous Durand Line.

The current level of 9,800 US troops in Afghanistan would drop to 5,500 by early 2017. The Afghan government and its allies have meanwhile failed to coax the Taliban to enter into talks. There is therefore no respite to terrorist attacks under Mullah Haibatullah. In the latest terrorist bombing of a police convoy in Kabul on Thursday, 33 including four civilians were killed. The developments are worrisome for both the US and its Nato allies. They want Pakistan to take on the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network.

Sartaj Aziz maintains that there are risks involved leading Pakistan to consider how far it can go and in what sequence and scale to avoid the blow back. The Afghan government too provides somewhat similar explanation for its inaction against the TTP leaders who guide terrorist attacks inside Pakistan from the Afghan side of the border. Pakistan’s concerns are by no means out of place. What riles Islamabad is that instead of sharing the burden the US has cut off part of its military aid and asked Pakistan to fund the F-16s itself. The intensifying Pak-Afghan differences help the terrorists while they cause suffering to both the Afghans and Pakistanis. Instead of asking Pakistan to do more the US should allay Pakistan’s concerns, thus encouraging it to take the risks involved in taking on the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network and paving the way for peace in the region.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. The Amerians are wasting time or gaining. As far as the Taliban and the present Leadership is concerned, their first demand is ALL foreign forces leave their home-land. What are the Americans or their ten thousand troops doing in Afghanistan ? Fifteen years on from Attacking a peaceful country and could not do nothing and now asking Pakistan to talk to Talibaan and bring them to the talks-table. What they could not achieve in 17 years , they are asking others to do. So what was it they attacked and occupied that country ? They are after the mineral wealth of Afghanistan and contain China – thousands of miles away from their own country !

  2. You are being a bit high-handed, don't you think, "Neutral"? Bin Laden operated from Afghanistan, and his operatives flew a plane into the Pentagon. The USA was invited to war and accepted. Sad for my country, and sad for the whole world. Afghanistan doesn't have enough wealth of recover what the war has cost… and China isn't going to be the third power to go broke fighting there. Usually the most elegant explanation is the true explanation, no?

    • If they did 9/11 then why was Iraq, Libya and Syria destroyed. There will be no peace till all invading forces are ousted. Where were the so called WMD in Iraq? What had Libya done to invite an attack? Why does US support so called moderate terrorists in Syria?

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