Daily Times

On March 23, 2015, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his CEO, Abdullah Abdullah, conducted their first official visit to the US in an effort to strengthen the bilateral relationship. In his long, flattering speech to US officials, Ashraf Ghani talked about peace initiatives for Afghanistan. He stated: “When sanctuaries end then peace begins. We are cautiously optimistic that we will bring peace.” By ending sanctuaries he meant the insurgency movement across the Pakistani border. If President Ghani’s optimism for peace materialises, it will be a testing ground for a new type of power relationship between the global (US and China) and regional powers (Pakistan, India and Iran) involved in the Afghan conflict.

Ashraf Ghani’s prudent optimism lost ground when the new Taliban leader rjected talking to the Afghan government. The Taliban, in the aftermath of their newly appointed leader, Mullah Akhter Mansour, hinted at adding fuel to the war to prove the notion that the country is the ‘Graveyard of Empires’. In addition, the recent developments in the northern province of Kunduz greatly complicate diplomacy and may potentially even deteriorate the military situation in the region. Therefore, it certainly requires that both countries maintain a level of cooperation with each other to avoid further deterioration. Afghanistan is, however, confident that Pakistan is behind the Taliban and it is Islamabad that is the biggest challenge to achieving peace. To understand the complexity of the multi-dimensional blame game, one must look briefly at the consequence of events and the decision making process between Afghanistan and Pakistan since 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

From right after the invasion, Pakistan has pursued several goals simultaneously in the Afghan conflict: started close ties with the mujahideen in their war against the Soviets, brought the Pashtuns residing on the other side of the Durand Line closer to Islamabad to the extent that they drop the separatist claim from their agenda, increased anti-Indian sentiment in the region and increased its military capability to a nuclear power, all at the cost of global superpower competition.

With the ability to have influence on resistance groups that eventually took power in 1992, Pakistan achieved its strategic depth against India in Afghanistan. In 1996, the Taliban victory finally gave Pakistan politico-military leverage to establish indirect rule at low-cost, high return for achieving its strategic objectives.

Since 2001, although both countries (Afghanistan and Pakistan) were strategic allies of the US in its war on terror, the tension between them has increased because of escalating mistrust and misinterpretation of one another. Pakistan is blaming Afghanistan for allowing the presence of India in the region and the Afghan government is accusing Pakistan of harbouring the Taliban and other insurgency groups against it. There is no doubt that Afghanistan, in the last 14 years, has followed a foreign policy with an overweighted relationship with India, the US and Iran at the expense of Pakistan. In the light of this foreign policy, the media, governmental staff and civil society in Afghanistan have contributed to building more mistrust towards Pakistan. In sum, the political game in Afghanistan contributed to Pakistan-India relations as strained and Afghan-Pakistan relations as much more hostile.

There are several underlying assumptions in Kabul and Islamabad that have strained the relationship between the two nations. Kabul believes that Afghanistan’s economic-strategic location has already encouraged China, India, Azerbaijan and the Gulf countries to be serious investors in Afghanistan. Secondly, Pakistan’s game of Pashtun territory (FATA) as a buffer zone between Afghanistan and Pakistan to extend its influence into Afghanistan and prevent Afghan influence from radiating into Pakistan is over now because the Pakistani Taliban and local Pashtuns are challenging this anachronism. Thirdly, ethnically fragmented Pakistan with separatist armed groups (Baloch), politically aggrieved Pashtuns, Sindhis and other dissatisfied minority groups represents a dismal political, economic and social situation. In contrast, Pakistan’s overall assumption is that the crisis in Afghanistan is in Islamabad’s national interest because it gives the country more leverage by having the Taliban as a big threat to the Afghan government. Pakistan is also cautiously calculating that the west will eventually substantially reduce its support for the Afghan government.

Regardless of what Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s assumptions are of each other, today there are at least five major security threats emanating from the region: foreign terrorists, the Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban, sectarian groups and organised crime. Military operations first in Swat and Waziristan and lately by General Dostum in north Afghanistan have proved the vulnerability of both states in maintaining peace and stability in the region through military efforts and without helping each other.

At the international level both countries are facing challenges. All attempts and efforts by President Ghani in seeking assistance from China, Saud Arabia and the Gulf states to intervene inclusively have failed. Internally, President Ghani faces challenges: widespread corruption, drug dealers, criminal groups and the Northern Alliance Council in Kabul. Recently, despite strong rejection by General Murad Ali Murad, the commander of the Afghan army’s ground forces, General Dostum, concentrated on a more kinetic strategy to build a militia to confront the Taliban threat directly, but soon had to withdraw as backlash intensified. Similarly, Pakistan’s foreign policy is to bring its already improved relationship closer to China at the cost of dissatisfying its old strategic partner, the US. ?

All this brings us to summarise that the best possible way to end the conflict in the region is to make peace talks real. To do so, Afghanistan must take as granted its potential geographical location at the intersection between the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia, which proves its importance as an economic-strategic location. Afghanistan needs to realise that despite historical, political, territorial differences that India and Pakistan may have, they share the same economic views in the region. Both countries are in need of Central Asian energy for which Afghanistan is the only transit route.

In addition, both countries are looking at Central Asia as a potential market to sell their products and services. Thus, Afghanistan must balance its relations with Pakistan and India as regional powers and partners, not preferring one over the other. To eliminate foreign interference in the region, Afghanistan needs to develop a ‘friendly no’ foreign policy, similar to the policy it played for the British and Russian empires in the 19th and 20th centuries. Afghanistan, as a member of the non-aligned club, does not need to commit itself to a military strategic agreement with super and regional powers.

Pakistan must review its strategic depth policy by decreasing interference in Afghanistan’s affairs. Pakistan must not look at Afghanistan the way it used to during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. This includes ending the anachronistic game of influencing and dictating. Both countries must realise the new era (economic prosperity, security and stability) that is shaping the future of Asia in which neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan should pursue their goals through military efforts but more through economic and diplomatic efforts. Pakistan needs to include the power of historical thinking in its policy towards Afghanistan. It needs to think of the unthinkable; if the current tensions between India and Pakistan, which is not very unlikely, lead to armed confrontation, it certainly again needs a neutral and impartial policy from Afghanistan.

In summation, for many reasons both countries understand very well that the Taliban are not the roadblock for peace in the region. The Taliban are used as a scapegoat for a shared strategy and consensus among the new type of power relations between the global (US and China) and regional powers (Pakistan, India and Iran) involved in the Afghan conflict. Therefore, Afghanistan needs to address social, political and economic grievances of the Taliban and Pakistan must allow the Taliban to choose independently their political faith. In order to avoid the worst in investing in the regional conflict, Pakistan needs a more balanced relationship with both global powers (US and China), not preferring one over the other. Afghanistan needs to retreat to its traditional foreign policy of ‘non-alliance’, which fits its geopolitical location.

The writer is an Afghan writer and geopolitical analyst at Afghanocentricism.com. He has worked for several international committees and organisations in the humanitarian field for more than 20 years. He can be reached at dawod555@yahoo.com