Daily Times

In the wake of the recent wave of deadly terror attacks in Pakistan, Pak-Afghan relations have once again plummeted with both sides accusing each other of doing too little to prevent Taliban fighters from operating on their territory. Islamabad has closed the Afghan border for over a month now. This is an all too familiar situation.

The recent blame game suggests that Kabul and Islamabad have learned nothing from their past. They have been in this situation too many times to realise that knee-jerk reactions and ad-hoc measures such as border closure do not achieve anything meaningful.

Now that some normalcy seems to be restoring, it is time for a dispassionate stocktaking of the current situation.

The core problem here is the shameful inability of the two countries to work together to fight what is essentially a common threat. The irony is that non-state actors are cognizant of this terrible lack of cooperation between the two countries and are fully exploiting it to their advantage.

These developments have revived the million-dollar question: Why can’t Islamabad and Kabul work together if both suffer from terrorism?

Kabul believes Islamabad’s Afghan policy is the major hurdle in the way of a joint approach to fighting terrorism. While Kabul does have a knack of denying its own responsibility at times and displacing blame to Islamabad for every internal failure, it has a fair point about our Afghan policy.

The bitter truth is we have used Islamic militancy as a tool of our regional policy.

Take the Afghan policy, for example: In the post-9/11 period, Islamabad pursued a dual policy regarding Afghanistan. At the official level, Islamabad professed to pursue peace and stability in Afghanistan — a goal that was well-aligned with its economic agenda in the region. In reality, a stable and peaceful Afghanistan, however, was desired only if it would be reasonably friendly or, to put it more bluntly, subservient to Pakistan. Islamabad had taken umbrage to New Delhi’s increasing economic, diplomatic and political influence in Kabul. This concern combined with the US’ “light footprint” approach in Afghanistan discouraged Islamabad from ceasing patronage of Taliban even though as it remained a front-line ally in the War on Terror.

The outcome was the resurgence of Taliban first in Afghanistan and then in Pakistan — a development that prompted our national security folks to coin the terms “bad” and “good” Taliban. Even though the military eventually started hunting down the Pakistani Taliban, it continued to turn a blind eye to the activities of Afghan Taliban and the Punjab-based sectarian and anti-Indian militant groups.

Towards the end of General Kayani’s tenure, there was some talk of Pakistan abandoning its maximalist agenda in Afghanistan. Rather than seeking the establishment of a friendly regime, Islamabad appeared willing to engage whoever was running the show in Kabul. This softening of position, however, couldn’t break the ice between the two countries. Islamabad put the blame of failure on Karzai’s hostile attitude.

Then came President Ghani. He discarded Karzai’s hawkish approach and reached out to Islamabad to allay its real and perceived concerns including revisiting strategic relations with India and taking action against the Pakistani Taliban. He began his term with a charm offensive: he sent cadets for officer training at Kakool, called on our army chief in Rawalpindi, and dropped a longstanding request for Indian military aid, including attack helicopters. Ghani’s bold move was aimed at securing Pakistan’s cooperation in bringing Taliban to the negotiating table. In doing so, he even endangered his own political position as hawks in the Afghan establishment opposed his conciliatory moves.

Unfortunately, we didn’t deliver on our promises, thanks to the divisions in the ranks of Taliban post-Mullah Omer and our reluctance to use strong-arm tactics to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. As Taliban accelerated their violent campaign in Afghanistan and civilian casualties reached an all-time high figure, Ghani ran out of patience and eventually had to return to the anti-Pakistan rhetoric typical of his predecessor.

A cost-benefit analysis of our post-9/11 Afghan Taliban reveals that it has proved very costly with practically no gains. The two main strategic goals of our policy — countering Indian influence and ensuring a friendly regime in Kabul — are the farthest from realisation. Instead, we have pushed Afghanistan even closer to India.

Today, all Afghans look at us with suspicion and regard our policies as domineering and overbearing. Our imaginary ‘Pashtun resentment’ card was a disguise for empowering Taliban whom our military establishment viewed as representatives of Pashtuns.

The worse bit is that our supposed strategic assets — Afghan Taliban — also do not consider us favourably. Currently, they are not fully asserting their independence because we have leverage over them. Once they cease to depend on the Pakistani state for sanctuaries, they are likely to turn against us, let alone to safeguard our interests in Afghanistan. In pursuit of our maximalist security goals, we have also badly hurt the economic plank of our Afghan policy, i.e. increased trade with Afghanistan, access to the resource-rich Central Asia and repatriation of Afghan refugees.

Internally, the so-called bad Taliban have exploited our strategic and tactical duplicity to mount attacks within Pakistan. Externally, our Afghan policy has damaged Pakistan’s relations with the US and western world and tarnished its credibility internationally — the brunt of which is borne by ordinary Pakistanis travelling and living abroad.

Despite the overwhelmingly clearadverse outcomes, Islamabad obstinately adheres to an India-centric Afghan policy and continues to extend patronage to Taliban. Given that Taliban are unlikely to serve as our protégés, one really wonders as to why we continue to support them and to what end?

It is high time for Islamabad to realise that durable internal peace can be achievedonly if it sincerely and indiscriminately reins in all militant groups within its borders. Without dismantling all safe havens of Afghan Taliban and Indian militant groups, the Afghans and the world at large are unlikely to take us seriously.

The author is a public policy graduate from University of Oxford