Daily Times

Over the last 16 years, the American military misadventure has brought with it a price-tag of one trillion dollars, with a human cost to Washington of around 2,400 lives. Yet the most damning verdict comes from President Ashraf Ghani himself: without US cash and capabilities neither the Afghan National Army (ANA) nor the government itself will last six months. Quite the slap in the face for the American war machine whose generals still talk about the opportunity cost if the mission were to fail. We hate to be the harbinger of bad news but, it seems to us, that is a case of Game Over in Kabul.

Nevertheless, it appears that the US will continue splashing the cash on the quagmire they tell everyone that they are so desperate to exit. It doesn’t have much choice given what’s riding on this. After all, it won’t do much for American street cred to have the most sophisticated military in the world defeated by a motley crew of some 21 extremist groups, some of whom may or may have ties to the Pakistani security establishment. The same goes for NATO. The Afghan experiment was its first non-European mission. Though, admittedly, the Alliance hasn’t really looked back since it got a little smarter in Libya and Syria by arming local rebels to make it easier to wash off the blood from its hands when it decides to walk away from those unwinnable wars, while declaring: it wasn’t us.

And whether the US realises it or not, President Ghani’s mother of all bombshells has inadvertently strengthened Pakistan’s hand in its militant-mainstreaming designs. For American military might has failed to secure our western border after all this time. Just as it has left Iraq in turmoil. And it is the same story elsewhere in the Middle East. Ghani’s claims, which are truly explosive (Imran Khan take note) underscore how crucial it is to get the Taliban to the negotiating table. Indeed, this is something the US has been desperately pushing for. What this might mean for the Afghan parliamentary elections that have been rescheduled to take place around a week before ours, in six months’ time, is anyone’s guess. But it might not be so farfetched a scenario to find that Washington supports over there what it doesn’t over here. For we all know how much stock the US puts in the ballot box; even while the electorate risks life and limb to give everyone the purple finger. Therefore we shouldn’t be overly surprised if we see a fast-track mainstreaming project taking place next door.

Yet if Pakistan were smart, it would reach out to India. Because regardless of how accurate or otherwise Ghani’s claims may be – they give the US good reason not to go anywhere. And by suspending our military assistance it is essentially having us pick up part of the tab for the Afghan conflict of its own making. And it is doing the same thing when it asks New Delhi to contribute economically to Kabul. This is pure (unstable) genius on the part of the Americans. Really, we have to ask, what better impetus could there be to push two arch rivals back to the negotiating table?  *

Published in Daily Times, January 20^th 2018.