Daily Times

Though Prime Minister’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz claimed that the relations with Afghanistan were improving after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the sidelines of SCO summit in Astana, Afghan government is leaving no stone unturned to hoodwink the world that its rot and ruin is because of Pakistan. Ashraf Ghani, his aides and diplomats are incessantly spewing venom against Pakistan, holding it responsible for all the bomb blasts and battles taking place in Afghanistan.

The blame game suits the frail and failing Afghan government to cover up its glaring inadequacies. Pakistan’s Ambassador to Washington Aizaz Chaudhry said that in addition to strong onslaught of Taliban, there were a host of issues that pervaded Afghanistan, including bad governance, corruption, weakening of the Afghanistan national security forces, debt issues and economic issues. Blaming Pakistan is at best an attempt to deflect attention from real causes of instability in Afghanistan.

Ground realities are quite different from what the Afghan government is portraying and propagating. Taliban and Haqqanis are now operating from within Afghanistan, their homeland. They are already in control of 40 percent of Afghanistan and are vying to wrest the rest of it. A few days ago, Taliban overran Darzab district in Jawzjan province, which is near Kazakhstan, about 700 KMs away from Pakistan. Daesh is also gaining ground in Afghanistan.

A content analysis of the statements of Ashraf Ghani and his cohorts, Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and National Security Adviser Hanif Atmar, makes one feel as if these words are coming out of the mouths of Indian hawks. Their statements not only smack of hostility but also seem to have been cunningly crafted to pinch and hurt Pakistan.

Ironically, Ashraf Ghani’s myopic approach hurts his own people more than Pakistan. When Pakistan reacts against Afghan belligerence by closing the Pak-Afghan border, Afghan government fails to make alternative arrangements to give respite to its citizens who are hugely dependent on Pakistan. Afghan people have now realised that Afghan government’s faulty policies and internecine rifts are detrimental to their interests. After a bomb blast in Kabul in June this year, people flooded the streets to protest against incompetence of Ashraf Ghani and Hanif Atmar and demanded their resignation. The duo reacted by ordering its forces to open fire on the protestors and killed four of them.

Ashraf Ghani is focused on propelling the Indian agenda to hurt Pakistan from the western border. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leadership and a large number of its militants, who had managed to escape Waziristan as a result of the military operation Zarb-e-Azb and took refuge in Afghanistan, are being trained and tasked to launch terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

Pakistan has faced umpteen terrorist attacks in urban centres resulting in deaths of more than 200 people and injuries to twice as much this year. All these attacks were planned, controlled and launched by the TTP leadership ensconced in Afghanistan. Besides Afghan forces have carried out incursions in tribal areas of Pakistan too. A month ago, 10 Pakistani citizens were killed and 45 others injured as Afghan forces targeted personnel of the Frontier Corps deployed for security of population census team in Chaman area, Balochistan.

Recently, the US Senator John McCain visited Pakistan and was taken to Waziristan to witness the battleground and the successes achieved against the insurgents there. He seemed convinced that Afghan propaganda about Pakistan’s complicity with Afghan Taliban and Haqqanis was highly exaggerated. Though he did not totally back off from the stated US stance he witnessed enough evidence to advocate Pakistan’s case on return to the US. One ground visit is better than hundred intelligence reports. Therefore, Pakistan must arrange more visits of US congressmen to help them understand the actual situation on ground and expose Ashraf Ghani’s lies and deception.

Afghanistan has never been a state in the real sense. Successive Kabul governments could never extend their writ over the entire Afghanistan. The situation has worsened during the last decade. This quagmire is likely to continue or get worse for next many years to come. Therefore, Pakistan should stay away from the internal matters of Afghanistan and better raise fence along the Durand line. And let the people of Afghanistan knock some sense into their rulers.

The writer is Honorary Director Centre for Peace and Security Studies, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Masters in International Security, War Studies Department, King’s College London. Tweets at NElahi@Aaibak

Published in Daily Times, July 11^th , 2017.