Daily Times

For Afghanistan, the last couple of decades have been nothing less than an endless nightmare. April marked the 40th anniversary of the Saur Revolution, which remains a key turning point of the Cold War to this day, along with the ouster and sham trial of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Several events which followed them led to the eventual downfall of the almighty Soviet Union. Just like the Titanic was perceived to be unsinkable, the USSR was perceived to be unbreakable, but reality and fate had something unfavourable to offer at the geopolitical level.

In the 1990s, warring Afghan warlords and chieftains knew that whoever controlled the region would gain the high ground. Hence, the leaders of the Afghan Mujahideen were given discreet support by the then Pakistani civil-military leadership to form an ultra-conservative Taliban regime that shook the political dynamics of not only Kabul but the world at-large. For Islamabad, this was a compulsion owing to the widely believed lack of cooperation by the United States at the time.

Cutting down history, the past 17 years are best described as hellish. From declared wars to proxy warfare and espionage, the region had witnessed it all with spill-over effects in surrounding areas. Hawkish elements representing several stakeholders have tried their best to undermine the much overdue Afghan peace process.

What initiated in 2011 as a pilot project had seen its rainy days on several occasions in the last seven years. From the failure of the Murree dialogue to the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) — formulated under the Heart of Asia’s Islamabad conference — being derailed to a certain degree, the commonality remained rogue elements and hawkish advisers.

Policymakers at the state level failed to realise that the success lied in winning over the locals and phasing out the one-dimensional security paradigm that had held the region hostage for far too long. Prominent commentators such as Barnett Rubin, Imtiaz Gul, Hussain Nadim and Michael Kugelman hold similar views on winning the “unwinnable” war.

It must be kept in mind that militant sanctuaries along the Pak-Afghan border still remain a bone of contention between the two countries

However, it must be kept in mind that militant sanctuaries along the Pak-Afghan border still remain a bone of contention. While it’s true that Pakistan has seen substantial gains since 2014, for the US it still remains unsatisfactory when it comes to containing the Haqqanis as pointed out by US diplomats such as Alice Wells.

President Donald Trump’s 2017 South Asia policy has its own drawbacks given its outdated and skewed outlook that was most likely proposed or influenced by those wishing to cause a great fire in the region.

In this scenario, people such as Amrullah Saleh, Christine Fair, Zalmay Khalilzad and Bruce Riedel are those willing to pin all blame on Islamabad for the region’s ills. Imtiaz Gul had rightly pointed out in one of his articles that such view are ill-perceived and do nothing more than pushing the peace initiative towards failure.

Nevertheless, the past couple of weeks have pinned high hopes for a lasting peace in Kabul owing to close cooperation between several powers such as the US, Pakistan and China. The June 12th visit to Kabul by Pakistan’s top military and intelligence officials has most likely shaped the recent short-lived Afghan ceasefire agreement.

It’s a shining example of how peace can be achieved in the long-run. Visuals of Afghan army officials and the Taliban cheering upon the ceasefire’s initiation was indeed the first remarkable moment since the inception of the war in 2001.

The drone strike that led to the assassination of dreaded TTP supremo Mullah Fazlullah is an indicator of a détente between Washington and Islamabad, whose ties have plummeted to a point of no return

Furthermore, the drone strike that led to the assassination of dreaded TTP supremo Mullah Fazlullah is an indicator of a détente between Washington and Islamabad whose ties had plummeted to a point of no return just a few months back. Not mentioning the several high-level phone calls which reduced the hostilities to potential stability.

The Afghan quagmire is all inter-connected to economic prosperity and a sense of security. Lasting peace can only be achieved through reasonable dialogue rather than the use of force. Perhaps this is why even former Afghan president Hamid Karzai has been vocal in pushing for peace in contrast to what he perceived during his tenure. For Beijing, the BRI is the stabilising remedy even though it sharply resembles neo-colonialism.

As for Washington, the much talked about Singapore détente with Pyongyang can potentially set the course for formulating peace plans in flashpoints such as South Asia where not only Islamabad-New Delhi but Islamabad-Kabul could also work together for economic prosperity. On the prospects of Indo-Pak ties, similar views have already been echoed by the Chinese envoy to India on an unofficial level.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan Action Plan for Peace and Solidarity (APAPPS), a recent initiative, is one such forum that has immense potential to bring two 71-year-old rivals together for the prosperity of not only the region, but the wider international community.

Economic interdependence and political cohesion can help resolve long-standing differences between the Afghans and the Pakistanis. This is something that is an absolute necessity for the benefit of the masses on both sides of the Durand Line.

While traditional means of diplomacy have not always worked out, they’re compulsory for the success of inter-state ties. However, modern techniques and out-of-the-box ideas could work as catalysts in the form of ‘neo-diplomacy’. Hence, peace should remain the ultimate objective, which has also been echoed by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in his latest op-ed for the New York Times. The region’s success lies solely in a winnable peace rather than an unending war.

The writer is Diplomatic Correspondent, Daily Times. He can be reached at hassankhan440@gmail.com and tweets @mhassankhan06

Published in Daily Times, July 1^st 2018.