Daily Times

International politics is the inevitable realm of national interests. Ethics, morality and altruism are alien here. Seen this way, realism has remained the timeless wisdom of international politics. The key to understanding the dilemma Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US face within the context of Afghanistan is to contextualise the whole debate under the rubric of national interests. Bargaining is what may pay off. Unfortunately, Afghanistan and Pakistan had an uneasy beginning. When Pakistan came into being in 1947, Kabul was accused of supporting the Pashtunistan movement in Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas. Similarly, Islamabad was held accountable for meddling in Afghan affairs in the late 1970s. Although allegations from both sides had some germs of truth, Islamabad and Kabul masqueraded behind plausible deniability. Post-9/11, with the US entering the fray, there was no let-up in the finger pointing. Whereas Afghanistan and the US accuse Pakistan of backing the Afghan Taliban, the latter points to the alleged Afghan protection of anti-Pakistan elements and blames the US for increasing Indian stakes in the Kabul court.
On the threshold of the unfolding of a new era, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US face a dilemma. With the US-led NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan fast approaching, conflicts of national interest plague the three participants. In the tripartite division, the interests of Pakistan and the Taliban appear far more compatible with each other than is the case for Pakistan either with the US or the Afghan government. In this marriage of convenience, the religious militia is not only anti-India and anti-Iran (Islamabad’s regional contenders for an assertive role in Afghanistan) it also ensures Islamabad an opening to the oil and gas rich Central Asian states and does not play the Durand Line card. In fact, Pakistan does not have any better alternative. All the other Afghan groups, the Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and the coterie of Pashtun nationalists, prefer India over Pakistan. Nor do the Taliban have any better choice. Pakistan is the only ray of hope in their ocean of despair. The fighting militia had a taste of power. They are eyeing it once more.
Washington and Islamabad shared some common interests. Post-9/11, Pakistan severed its ties with the Taliban, provided logistic support to the US and handed over al Qaeda’s operatives. What Islamabad has been accused of, however, is alleged protection of the Taliban. It is here that the interests of the two states collide. It is the immense failure of the US that for more than a decade it ignored Pakistan’s concerns in the court of Kabul. These ranged from the growing Indian presence in Afghanistan, Iranian influence, the Durand Line conundrum and the Tajik-Hazara-Pashtun nationalists’ pro-India or pro-Iran tilts, all the way to access to Central Asia.
If the past is any guide to the future, which it indeed is, then it is crystal clear that Pakistan will not change its trajectory post-2014, when it did not change post-9/11. According to neo-realism, major powers have the unrivalled capability to bend their smaller counterparts to their will. Nevertheless, power is hardly fungible; rarely do states compromise their core national interests irrespective of how irresistible a pressure may be. On a host of issues, the US bullies Pakistan; on a variety of others it simply cannot. The efficacy of the power of the ‘undisputed’ superpower — at least on the military front — dwindles on a multitude of what Robert O Keohane calls “issue areas”. Thus, browbeating Pakistan to sever its ties with the Taliban, the provision of air bases, and continuing with drone attacks irrespective of the hue and cry from Islamabad, are the issue areas where the efficacy of Washington reaches its apogee. Allegedly supporting the Taliban militia is an issue area where Islamabad holds sway. Thus, the US needs to understand the limits of what is possible.
Making sense of Pakistan’s alleged involvement in Afghan violence is imperative. Its desperation comes from Ted Robert Gurr’s “relative deprivation”, the discrepancy between value expectations and value capabilities. As Gurr cogently argues, the difference between what one expects and what one actually gets leads to frustration. Frustration begets violence. Pakistan expects more influence in Afghanistan than it actually wields. The Afghan government, NATO and India bear the brunt of this frustration because responsibility has to be fixed somewhere.
Much is at stake in Afghanistan. Making the country a success story of nation building is in the interests of the US, Pakistan and the whole world. Until we find some common ground, the incompatibility of goals is tearing the country apart. Doing so requires a compromise. Keeping India’s role in Afghanistan at a minimum and making it contingent upon Delhi’s progress in making peace with Islamabad on the Kashmir front could be instrumental in eliciting Pakistan’s support. Kabul should understand that it enjoys no level pegging with its eastern neighbour. Putting the Durand Line issue on the backburner and coming to friendly terms with Pakistan are Afghanistan’s inducing instruments to lure its unavoidable neighbour not to play a ‘spoiler’ role. Pakistan has suffered hugely from the spillover of the Afghan crisis. For the country, exercising restraint is the key to peace at home. These may be tough choices for all involved but this is what politics is all about. For the US, in order to bring any semblance of stability to Afghanistan, working with Pakistan with its extant interests in Afghanistan is a prerequisite for any enduring peace in the Afghan neighbourhood.

The writer is a freelance journalist stationed in Quetta