The Pak-US fandango shows no signs of quickstepping. Yet it is about time it did. Admittedly, Washington has offered Islamabad a compromise on flushing out the Haqqani Network: we are no longer required to arrest or take members out — we just have to push them gently across the border where American and NATO bombs will do the rest. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. If only things were so simple. But of course nothing ever is; especially when it comes this bilateral relationship. Yet the answer lies not in repackaging the same old diktats which, in turn, prompt the same old grievances from Pakistan. These include the not unreasonable observation that relentless and public US pressure for this country to do more, more, more on counter-terrorism merely fuels anti-American sentiment that proceeds to turn on the Pakistani state itself. This then leaves the civilian leadership in Islamabad with little option but to repeat the need for an Afghan-led and -owned political process for peace. After 17 long years of US-led warfare across our western border — the time has perhaps come for a paradigm shift in prevailing narratives. And a good and necessary place to start is debunking once and for all Washington’s rewriting of history in terms of its meddling in Afghanistan. We say this not to initiate more blame-gaming. All we are after is an acknowledgement that though we may have fanned the flames — it was the Americans who started the fire. Especially considering it was not only the Taliban that were splashed with US cash, arms and training. Jalaluddin Haqqani is the late leader of what Washington describes as one of the most lethal groups confronting it in Afghanistan today. He is also ‘credited’ as the man who introduced suicide bombings to the country. But before all this he was a CIA protégé; and certain recipient of a portion of the $3billion that flowed to favoured mujahedeen fighting to defeat communism there. This is to say nothing of add-ons in terms of shoulder-fired missiles and other assortment of weapons. And to be sure, these represent not the rantings of a paranoid state that rests in permanent denial; for we are mindful that the latter is not a river in Egypt. After all, this is something that American journalists and Afghanistan watchers, such as Steve Coll, have long contended: that US, Pakistani and Saudi intelligence facilitated the rise of the Haqqani Network. Such sentiments have also been echoed by former CIA analysts. Yet fast-forward to the present and Kabul is still suffering the blowback of all this while Islamabad continues to be scapegoated for Washington’s one-time policy that also involved a cool $51 million spent on teaching Afghan schoolchildren to celebrate jihad. Yet responsibility for setting the record straight also goes to Afghanistan itself. It must remind the Americans of what they have done. The latter should not worry that any forthcoming admission towards this end will be tantamount to appeasing terrorists. Instead, it should be viewed as an initial step in the long road to healing that country; not to mention ours, too. For as things stand today, Washington’s white-washing of the role it has played for the last 40 years in quagmire-ing our western neighbour — which has also effectively trickled down to its compliant mainstream media — is akin to gas-lighting both Kabul and Islamabad. And that can never be the path to peace. So, how about it, President Ghani? Are you ready to do the needful? * Published in Daily Times, March 1st 2018.