Daily Times

It was Ghani, interestingly, that set the trend of meeting the Pakistani Army chief shortly after he assumed the presidency in ’14. It was, for all intents and purposes, a bold gambit. Reaching out to Rawalpindi rubbed almost everybody in Kabul the wrong way, especially the chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, not to mention the old guard, much of which outlasted Hamid Karzai’s not so graceful farewell.

Those with slightly long memory will remember the last days of the Karzai government, when the Afghan parliament unanimously voted Pakistan’s ISI, not the Afghan Taliban, as the country’s number-one enemy. In a way, Ghani defied them by reaching out to the Pakistani military. But the other part of the coalition government did not have to twist his arm too hard to get him to backtrack very quickly. And since then the Ghani presidency has been pretty much like the Karzai presidency. One big difference, though, is a far greater internal fracture, in large part because of the coalition nature of the government.

Needless to say, the internal breakdown only makes Kabul spew more venom at Pakistan. Even in the best days since the ‘return of representative government’ Afghan security has struggled to restore order beyond Kabul; not even in Kandahar. And for a long time now everything that goes wrong, especially the rise of the Taliban insurgency, is Pakistan’s fault.

In this backdrop, the new COAS’s phone call to Ghani assumes greater significance. One reason Ghani backtracked so fast last time was the issue of border fencing. Kabul has complained of Pakistani interference across the Durand Line since well before the war against terrorism. And the TTP insurgency inside Pakistan has caused similar problems for Islamabad, especially since Afghan intelligence is openly aiding the Pakistani Taliban in their border areas.

The only real foolproof way of halting this undesirable border traffic, really, is fencing it. Yet the Afghans have always bolted at this proposal. And it’s not like they have a better alternative. Headlines following Gen Qamar Bajwa’s call to President Ghani spoke of ‘robust border management systems’. Unless something has dramatically changed in the security calculus over the last year, this will bring the two sides right back to the subject of fencing.

And unless the General said something to the President that got the latter thinking and neither has yet breathed a word of it to anybody, there’s little likelihood of Ghani, or anybody in Kabul for that matter, accepting the fencing now. So why the sudden optimism? Let not the barrage of news coverage hide how warmly Ghani is hand in glove with Modi, especially on the subject of Pakistan. Shutting the border will, of course, halt the flow of Taliban both ways. But it will also put a spanner in the works of Afghan and Indian intelligence designs that have been years in the making. Kabul is most likely playing along with Bajwa’s call first for optics and second for keeping the ball rolling and the border porous.

Yet as smart as the plan sounds, it overlooks the obvious. Surely Ghani, as president, would have noticed that the Taliban have been on the rise these past few years, especially since he took power. Also, curiously, the usual ‘winter lull’ – when fighting traditionally stops in Afghanistan till the annual ‘spring offensive’ – has not happened since ’13 at least, despite the foot upon foot of snow that the cruel Himalayan winter dumps on the country, especially the periphery where fighting is fiercest.

Then there’s the rising, undeniable, spectre of ISIS. So far Kabul, more out of logistical constraints than a strategic novelty, has comfortably sat back and watched the Taliban and ISIS battle it out, often quite brutally, in the countryside. But if Ghani just takes a textbook course on the spread of ISIS and its mergers and acquisitions with other militant groups, he would be a worried man. However, since he’s not, obviously, he’s not factored in the impact of the insurgency or the diversification of militancy on his plans.

Borrowing chess terminology – in the tradition of the classics – a combination, often involving sacrifices of important pieces to realise deeply calculated advantage, is good only as long as one employing it succeeds and checkmates the opponent. The most brilliant manoeuvres, if they bring failure, amount to nought. Ghani can invest time and money in building an espionage labyrinth on the Durand Line with the Indians, but who’ll look silly when that diverts time and money from a desperately ill-equipped national army battling a spreading Taliban insurgency?

If the Afghans have learnt anything from this long war, they will treat the Pakistani Army chief’s call with respect. Pakistan is well into its war against its own insurgency. If the previous chief took it upon himself to begin the cleansing, this one must end it. And, strange as it sounds so late into this war, there is still a way to make a quantum advance in both countries’ war on the Taliban with one stroke. The chief was not, unlike the Afghans, just kicking the can down the road when he said ‘robust border management systems’.

Even if the Afghans are not yet ready for all out seal-shutting the border, they will still have to take joint responsibility in manning large parts of it. That will show mutual commitment, at least for optics, which Kabul is so fond of in its games with Islamabad. Once they commit, they will begin to see quantifiable benefits, unlike the pipe dream the Indian arrangement gives them. Gen Bajwa is proving a man who understands the large dividends that subtle manoeuvring of the pieces can bring. It is not up to the Afghans to return the favour. They can accept the new beginning, and get serious about the border. Or they can bet on the war and see where the chips fall. From the posturing so far, they are unlikely to get another call from the COAS if they turn this one down.

The writer is the Resident Editor, Daily Times, Lahore and can be reached at yourafiq@gmail.com