Daily Times

The current volatility on the Durand Line at Torkham, one of the main border crossings between Pakistan and Afghanistan, shrouds the emergence of an occurrence that is complicated by regional and international power games played through proxies. The situation followed the killing of Mullah Akhtar Mansour, Amir of Afghan Taliban, in a drone attack in the border region of Balochistan on May 21, 2016.The killing of the Taliban leader caused embarrassment for Pakistan that had no rational explanationfor his presence within its territory. This was followed by a deal between India and Iran to develop the strategic port of Chabahar in Iran by India. A trilateral pact was also signed to build a transport-and-trade corridor through Afghanistan, which could halve the time and cost of business with Central Asia and Europe. The development is interpreted by the security establishment as encircling and isolating Pakistan at the cost of an oversight of the dynamic nature of international politics ordained by policy adjustment, alignment and realignment.

However, the security establishment exercising a de-facto hold on foreign policy, particularly relating to Afghanistan, India and the United States of America since the late 1970s, harshly resisted any change or adjustment, thus making it a static phenomenon. The consequential blowback is not only geostrategic or socioeconomic, but also psychological in the face of crumbling grand geostrategic fantasies cherished at the cost of socioeconomic development.

It is now an open secret that the United States was only interested in giving the Soviet Union a Vietnam, andthe dismemberment of the Soviet Union was only a bonus. Wrapped in the Afghan jihad, the designs of Pakistan’s security establishment were more ambitious than that of the US: fantasy of Kashmir and Afghanistan as booty. The economic and military assistance by the US was assumed as expenses bill, not the ultimate reward.

The defeat of the Soviet Union was the end for the American interest but the beginning of a strategic game for the security establishment of Pakistan that wished to arrogate the right to use the Afghan war residues for its regional strategic interests. In the face of the changing regional and international geostrategic and economic dynamics, those interests turned sour with the western allies.However, much water had already passed under the bridge that could not deter the security establishment’s strategic fantasies to change the static nature of the foreign policy. In time of pressure our knights tried to whitewash with tactical changes and adjusting narratives to weather out the storm that further bogged down the country in a quagmire.

After the Soviet withdrawal, the Pakistani establishment rejected the proposal of a broad based government in Kabul on the grounds that seven groups of the Mujahedeen did not accept the formula. Later, that resulted in a devastating civil war among the Mujahedeen paving way for the Taliban. The Durand Line issue went into the background after the Taliban regime rejected to recognise it as an international border. Their rationale was that Islam had no concept of borders. Their refusal to toe that line expedited the push towards the North, the last hurdle in realising the objectives of Afghanistan as a “backyard.” But the tables turned when 9/11 came out of the blue.The post 9/11 narrative shifted from eulogising the Taliban rule as exemplary in establishing law and order, bringing peace and ensuring political stability to that of defeating the thugs, the erstwhile “holy warriors.”

Overnight, after America toppled the Taliban regime, our narrative painted the Taliban as freedom fighters struggling against the American occupation and representatives of the marginalised Pakhtuns. After three successive peaceful transfers of power in Kabul through universal franchise — dampened the “strategic depth” fantasy — the narrative ended with India’s influence in Afghanistan, a threat to Pakistan’s stability.

The Indian influence reflects our own designs, now turned into fear for Afghanistan, to make it a bastion against India under the Taliban in the name of strategic depth. Ironically, the Afghans are sceptical when we use the phrase “stable and peaceful Afghanistan is in our interest,” because in the parlance of the architectsof our strategic depth, Afghanistan under the Taliban was most peaceful and stable.

India reacted to the post-Taliban Afghanistan through diplomatic and soft power approach, investing hugely in the state building project. The area, ignored by the US and the NATO coalition, created a positive image across the Afghan society. In contrast, our single outlet to Afghanistan is through the Taliban, which is now increasingly becoming a pariah entity among Afghans let alone the world.

The question is, if Indian influence on the sovereign Afghanistan is a genuine threat to the interests of Pakistan, is a Talib the only tool in the state’s paraphernalia to contain Indian influence in Afghanistan and niche out influence in a neighbour state without compromising its sovereignty?

As more Pakhtuns are living on this side of the Durand Line, and presumably, the state of Pakistan is confident about their integration, could not the state of Pakistan put a premium on them to make positive use of their historical and cultural connectivity as leverage? Ironically, Pakhtuns on this side of the Durand Line suffered socially, politically, economically, and are now physically suffering due to the backyard follies that brought militancy to their cities and villages, which was dubbed as the reaction to drone attacks.

Moreover, a substantial portion of the Pakhtun population on this side of the Durand Line is out of the mainstream political system. Members of parliament elected from the Federal Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) can legislate for the rest of the country except their own areas i.e. FATA. Currently, the entire FATA and the majority areas of the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA) are out of the ambit of civilian administration due to the enforcement of The Actions (in Aid of Civilian Power) Regulation. The population of PATA can elect its members of parliament, but the laws enacted by the MPs require the special consent of the president to be extended by the provincial governor to PATA. The current Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government tried to extend the custom act to the areas without scraping the status of PATA that faced tremendous resistance by the people of the region.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is perhaps the only province that is subject to every type of political experiment, wherein certain politico-religious elements can become popular overnight and sweep elections, a tool used to keep the Pakhtun nationalist elements under pressure.

We are lecturing the world that Afghanistan is the graveyard of invading powers but why does the security establishment not understand that they also stand on this side of the Durand Line? How long can they hide in the turban of the Taliban?

Can the security establishment read the writing on the wall to see the ground realities? Wishful thinking can be anything but not the state’s foreign policy.The mess we are in is not because of civilians or inept democracy but due to the past policies. The security paradigm over which civilians had no control boomeranged. Six decades is enough time to enjoy unaccountable power. Now let the elected parliament and government reach to the world diplomatically through reciprocity instead of putting the state in a suicide mode for the sake of strategic fantasies. Unlike the 1990s, neither do we have that much negotiation space nor time.

The writer is a researcher and a political analyst with expertise in South Asian politics. He specialises in critiquing the Afghan-Pakistan relationship beyond accepted narratives