And our national interest
Former US diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, in an opinion piece in the New York Times, has welcomed Trump’s new initiative. Spouting his signature venom against Islamabad he has recommended that the US should impose sanctions against senior officers of the Pakistani military
Perhaps to provide a justification for consistent failures of successive US administrations in Afghanistan an American analyst coined the term “graveyard of empires” almost a decade and half ago. After being stuck in the Afghan quagmire for the past sixteen years – the longest war in US history– a jingoistic president, Donald Trump, has decided to blame Pakistan for his military’s abysmal failure to subjugate the Taliban.
Of course the American empire is not about to fall at the hands of the Afghan Taliban. The British Empire got a bloody nose fighting the Afghans in its sunset days. More recently the former Soviet Union forces had to leave in ignominy.
At that time the wily General Zia ul Haq, who ruled Pakistan in the name of Islam for eleven years, hitched his wagon with the US. He became the lynchpin of the “Afghan jihad”, strengthening his iron grip on the hapless people of Pakistan in the process.
Since then there has been no turning back. Successive military regimes in the past, with weak civilian governments in tow, have considered Afghanistan as their backyard and legitimate sphere of influence.
Hence the term “strategic depth’ was coined. Former military chief General Aslam Beg used it with impunity to describe the military’s India-specific strategic paradigm. During General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani’s tenure as COAS an article was penned in the Pakistan Army Green Book by an officer debunking the strategic depth theory. The COAS was however quick to point out to a group of journalists that the views expressed were the officer’s own and not the military’s.
Of course somewhere down the line there was a somewhat of a belated realisation that the chickens have finally come home to roost. It was only under the previous army chief, General Raheel Sharif, that a full-fledged offensive was launched against the Taliban.
When the head of the TTP (Tehreek a Taliban Pakistan) Hakimullah Meshud was killed in drone attack in N. Waziristan in November 2013, Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan lamented that this was an attack on the peace process.
The freshly inducted Sharif government at the time was playing the charade of talking to the terrorists in quest for peace — with those who openly debunked the idea of Pakistan as a democracy. Of course the process did not bear any fruit and came to an abrupt end after the attack on Army Public School in Peshawar December 2014.
Admittedly, the Pakistani military has taken great strides in combating the menace of terrorism during the past four years. The hydra–headed monster of terrorism has been badly scorched, but not entirely obliterated. The number of terrorist incidents and resultant casualties has exponentially come down.
Both the civilian and military leadership duly deserve credit for the feat. Pakistan is a much safer place to live in as compared to only half a decade ago.
Our mentors in the west including the US also acknowledge this. Nevertheless why is it that at the same time Pakistan is being blamed by successive administrations for being the fount of instability in Afghanistan?
The previous Obama administration would implore Islamabad to do more. But Trump has gone many steps further. He has not only accused Pakistan of harbouring and facilitating Afghan-specific terrorists – primarily the Haqqani group — for the first time India has also been formally brought into the equation.
Trump, knowing well that this will prove to be the proverbial red rag to the bull, has implored New Delhi to play its role in Afghanistan. Islamabad has always maintained that through its consulates in Afghanistan, as a matter of policy, New Delhi has been destabilising Pakistan.
Interestingly, there is a nexus of another kind between New Delhi and Kabul, now also getting tailwinds from Washington. The Indians blame alleged Pakistani interference for their travails in occupied Kashmir while it is convenient for both Trump and his quisling in Kabul, Ashraf Ghani, to blame Islamabad for the upsurge of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Ironically, the Afghan president claims to be off the hook for harbouring Pakistan-specific terrorists including TTP head Mullah Fazaullah on the spurious plea that they are entrenched in territory beyond Kabul’s control. If so, how come these groups receive logistic support from the Afghan intelligence agency NDA (National Directorate of Security)?
It is obvious that despite Trump’s bluster, mere four thousand additional US troops in Afghanistan will not be able to defeat the resurgent Taliban. Obama’s 100,000-troop surge failed on this very count. Obviously a few thousand troops cannot change the ground realities.
This means more pressure on Islamabad. A trigger happy US president has already threatened the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un with a nuclear Armageddon. He is also quite willing to invade Venezuela just because the person of his choice lost the presidential elections there.
Unfortunately, the man who lives on the lunatic fringe is not only a threat to world peace but to the Americans themselves. But being the commander in chief of a superpower with his fingers on the nuclear button Pakistan should not dismiss him lightly.
The National Security Committee (NSC) meeting the other day, chaired by Prime Minister Khaqan Abbasi and attended by the top brass and relevant cabinet ministers, predictably rejected Trump’ s wild allegations. It warned against scapegoating Pakistan for failures in the Afghan war.
The COAS, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, expressed similar sentiments during a meeting with the US ambassador, David Hale, at the GHQ. He rightly declared that Pakistan did not want US aid but its trust. In any case US assistance is only a small fraction of the $50 billion plus CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor) package.
Nonetheless, hopefully some introspection must be taking place amongst our policy-making echelons. The perception that Pakistan is harbouring India and Afghan-specific terrorists should be finally laid to rest
If not addressed in real time perceptions become realities. Hence there is need to walk the talk. China and surprisingly Russia are both supportive of our position. Nonetheless, no jhadist group should get away using our territory as a springboard.
Former US diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, in an opinion piece in the New York Times, has welcomed Trump’s new initiative. Spouting his signature venom against Islamabad he has recommended that the US should impose sanctions against senior officers of the Pakistani military.
Going further he not only desires suspension of all US assistance to Pakistan but also wants the US to use its influence with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to do the same. He also wants that Islamabad should be put on the list of states that sponsor terrorism with all its appended consequences.
If wishes were horses beggars would ride. Even if the US administration adopts Zalmay ’s recommendations in toto, this will not solve its Afghan problem. The only thing that can work is dialogue and accommodation.
There is no military solution to this quagmire. Neither for the US nor for Pakistan.
