The much awaited and anticipated visit of Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani to India took place in the last week of April, though he had earlier met Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi on the sidelines of multilateral forums. During their meeting, Ghani reiterated his resolve to weed out terrorism from Afghanistan and India assured its support to his cause.
Linking terrorism to the region in his public speech in New Delhi, Ashraf Ghani said that Afghanistan was fighting a war against the terrorists for its regional neighbours, from Russia to India. This may create a sympathetic wave for Afghanistan’s power elites but it is far from reality: at present, Afghanistan is fighting the US’s war. The enemy against which the war is going on was created, trained and armed by the US to fight its war against the former USSR from 1979 to 1989. At that time, the same bunch of terrorists against whom the global war on terror was launched after the despicable attack on the twin towers in New York on September 11 2001, were the blue-eyed boys of the US and its western bloc allies. It all began with the invasion of Afghanistan by the former USSR to unseat Hafizullah Amin, who was suspected of being pro-US. In retaliation, the US and its allies entered into the fray to contain the spread of communism in Afghanistan.
Since then, the region has been in the grasp of that war. Its spillover has embedded a new form of violence in almost all countries but Pakistan has faced the real wrath. The genesis of large-scale structural violence in Pakistan lies in its active participation in the 1979 war. It provided material benefits to many army commanders and absolved General Ziaul Haq from global ignominy through the hanging of Zulfikar Bhutto. Not learning a lesson from history, after 9/11, the Pakistani power elites once again sided with the US in the war on terror. They have not shied away even from killing their own citizens and carrying out drone attacks against them. Both the state and the militants are using all possible means against each other. In their fight, innocents are dying and are being killed but these deaths do not matter because they are not human lives, rather ‘collateral damage’ to win a war for the US.
As the state is an interest-seeking actor, US-based companies and administrations have not shied away from engaging with the Taliban in the past for economic gains. During the authoritarian and barbaric rule of the Taliban, deals were made to open doors for the construction of giant gas and oil pipelines from Central Asia down through Afghanistan and Pakistan. The main contender was a US-Saudi coalition of the Union Oil Company of California (UNOCAL) and Delta oil companies. The pipeline and roads were to be protected by the Taliban’s fighters. The problem between the two erupted over Osama bin Laden, who made his operational headquarters in Afghanistan in 1996. He started his career in Afghanistan in 1979 and, afterwards, he turned against the Saudi family, financing and planning many attacks on US installations in the Persian Gulf and Africa.
Not only the US but also neighbouring countries have played a significant role in the continuation of the civil war and the rise of Islamic radicals in Afghanistan. Almost all of them have lent political and economic support to selected ethnic groups to achieve some sort of ‘strategic depth’ and establish their sphere of influence in Afghanistan to encircle or contain their rivals. For instance, after the decline of the Taliban, to gain an upper hand against each other, India and Pakistan have extended their proxy war into Afghanistan. Who is responsible for this is a puzzle; both sides blame each other. Pakistan alleges that, through its consulates in Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar and Jalalabad, India finances terrorism in Balochistan. This is unequivocally denied by India. On the contrary, Pakistan has been held responsible for attacks on Indian consulates in the past.
When the US entered Afghanistan, US policymakers forgot the fact that they were going to enter into a land known as the ‘graveyard of empires’. They also forgot the lesson they learnt during the Vietnam War. Both proved to be a costly affair. As the war stretched, casualties increased. Consequently, the increase in deaths of US soldiers forced it to withdraw after fighting for 13 years and finding success in killing Osama bin Laden, their prime enemy. Like 1989, after creating disturbance and confusion, the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) ceased its operations in Afghanistan in December 2014 even though a small number of troops have been left behind to perform a non-combatant and advisory role for the resolute support mission. Also, nine military posts are being manned by ISAF. At present, the US is regulating the war by providing monetary help to warlords, private groups and the Pakistan army to continue fighting to secure its interests in Afghanistan.
Hence, it is an aberration to state that Afghanistan is fighting the region’s war. At present, the Afghans and the borderland people from Afghanistan and Pakistan are being killed to serve the endless interests of outsiders in the region.
The writer is a PhD holder in South Asian Studies from the Jawaharlal Nehru University. He specialises in Indian internal security and foreign policy as well as regional water conflicts