The tension between the Pakistan and Afghanistan has failed to abate, while the United States has renewed efforts to reconcile the two neighbours; however, no concrete outcome can still be seen. Recently, the US Secretary of State John Kerry hosted Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani in the Belgium capital, Brussels, to ease tension between the two countries. The joint communiqué issued at the end of the Brussels meeting said that "productive" talks took place between the two sides. However, significantly the US Secretary of State Kerry said, after the tripartite talks, that the success or failure of the talks would be measured by their results.

In other words, the talks were a means towards an end, and not themselves the end. The details of the talks were not made public but the participation of Karzai and COAS Kayani reveals that they were of great significance. The participation of Gen. Kayani in the talks with the Afghan political leadership demonstrates the extent to which Islamabad is ready to go to restore peace in Afghanistan. In the last few months, Kabul, specifically Karzai, has been consistently complaining regarding what it thinks is Pakistan's insincerity towards the Afghan peace process. However, Kabul could not substantiate, despite unceasing allegations, the nature and measure of the insincerity of Islamabad. The latest point of friction between Islamabad and Kabul regardsthe nature of the peace process in Afghanistan. It is unfortunate that the US and its European allies have found Kabul's stance more credible than Pakistan's. This can be gauged from the fact that the NATO foreign ministers meeting, which preceded the Pakistan-Afghanistan talks in Brussels, called upon Pakistan to crack down on militants who allegedly use the country as a sanctuary to launch attacks in Afghanistan. This is, indeed, an ominous situation for Pakistan because on the other hand, NATO failed to ask Afghanistan to sort out the issue of sanctuaries of Pakistani Taliban on its soil, which the insurgents use to launch attacks inside Pakistan.

It is important to note that Kabul has been accusing Pakistan of sponsoring the Afghan Taliban insurgency. Earlier Karzai and his cohorts used to accuse Pakistan of holding Afghan Taliban commanders, so that no peace talks between them and the Afghan government could take place.

Therefore, Kabul then asked Pakistan to release Afghan Taliban commanders so that the peace process led by the Afghan High Peace Council could be facilitated. In response, Pakistan started releasing Afghan Taliban commanders and at various points set free 25 of them. However, their release did not curtail the level of the Afghan insurgency nor facilitated talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government. In fact, the incompetent Afghan government could not take advantage of the situation. To shield his own failure, Karzai started alleging that the commanders, who were released by Pakistan, rejoined the Taliban ranks. The Afghan Taliban have been waging an insurgency on Afghan soil so it means the Taliban commanders released by Pakistan must have joined the Taliban inside Pakistan. Then, who is responsible for that? Obviously, the Karzai administration because if they failed to engage with the released commanders and could not track them, it means that the Afghan government does not have control over its territory. This also establishes beyond doubt the fact that Kabul's lack of control over its territory has also helped Pakistani Taliban to cultivate its sanctuaries on Afghan soil so as to use it to foment trouble inside Pakistan. In such an atmosphere and environment, created by the extremely inept handling of matters by President Karzai, no meaningful peace process is possible inside Afghanistan and there can be no improvement in the relations between Kabul and Pakistan. A close look at the latest anti-Pakistan tirade by Afghan President Karzai would reveal that it has emerged at a time when the US and the rest of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are increasingly drawing down their forces in Afghanistan. Karzai wants to use the opportunity to build pressure on Pakistan to meet the illogical demands of Kabul, regarding the influence of Pakistan inside Afghanistan. In other words, Karzai and the entire Afghan officialdom think that Pakistan has a dominating influence on the Afghan Taliban. Whereas, the fact of the matter is that Pakistan only has a working relationship with the Afghan Taliban. So how can Pakistan use its good offices to influence the Afghan Taliban to give up fighting against the Afghan government? A very important aspect of the issue is that the very premise of the official view of Afghanistan that the Taliban from Pakistan are responsible for the continued civil war in the country is simplistic and fallacious. How can a rag-tag army of a few thousand ill-equipped and ill-trained fighters engage the hundreds of thousands of well-equipped foreign forces? Afghan officials know that Pakistan does not have a controlling influence on the Taliban, but at the same time use it as a propaganda tool to cover the incapacity and incompetency of Kabul and to put Pakistan at the receiving end.

President Karzai started levelling increasingly serious charges against Pakistan as part of a well-orchestrated strategy. The foremost motive of this strategy is that Karzai is desirous of winning the hearts and minds of his countrymen. Pakistan-bashing has been an attractive slogan inside Afghanistan for politicians and rulers to rally public support, particularly at a time of a lack of legitimacy. Afghan president Sardar Daud in the 1970s, also resorted to unprecedented anti-Pakistan propaganda and launched the Pakhtoonistan stunt in order to get political legitimacy inside Afghanistan. Because Daud had dethroned the legitimate Afghan King Zahir Shah and had usurped power. So, in order to cultivate a political constituency and to get legitimacy, he adopted a profoundly anti-Pakistan stance. Karzai seemingly is replicating Daud's tested strategy for internal consumption. Karzai would have to relinquish power at the end of his second presidential stint early next year. Although under the Afghan constitution he cannot be elected for a third term, but to be known as a "successful" president and "architect of a new Afghanistan" he needs to do something and the soft target, as always, is Pakistan. This does not mean that Pakistan has never been negatively engaged in Afghanistan. However, accusing Islamabad for Kabul's own incapacity and failure has been an important tactic and feature of Afghan rulers.

To be known as a "successful" leader inside Afghanistan is also important for the extended members of Karzai's clan to have any fair chances of introducing another presidential candidate in the Afghan political arena. On its part, Pakistan has been coming up with plans and strategies to bring peace to the war-ravaged country, but the Afghan rulers never allow Islamabad to implement it effectively, while at the same time considering Pakistan as a key to the Afghan peace process. For instance, in 2006, Pakistan had successfully negotiated a peace plan with Mustapha Zahir Shah, the grandson of the late King Zahir Shah. According to the peace plan, Mustapha would have had to play an instrumental role in a newly launched peace initiative. He would also have had to occupy a key place in the new dispensation comprising all ethnic groups of Afghanistan. The plan envisaged that Pakistan would help bring a consensus political dispensation in Kabul, comprising all ethnic groups, simultaneously ensuring its stability, dismantling the feared militant infrastructure and carefully combing its security apparatus to avert the risk of radicalism. However, the vested interests of Karzai, threw a spanner in Islamabad's works.

Now the irrational accusation from Karzai and Kabul will also torpedo the understanding reached between Pakistan and Afghanistan a few months back, of forging an unprecedented level of cooperation which would have culminated in the signing of a strategic partnership between their two countries in six months, or next autumn.

The situation today in Afghanistan is so adverse that Karzai and his administration have to be careful in dealing with Pakistan; instead of personal and vested interests they will have to enter into a meaningful dialogue with Pakistan and the Afghan insurgent groups. Otherwise the situation in Afghanistan will get worse; the immediate and ultimate sufferers will be the common Afghans, instead of Karzai or his intelligence chief, and hangers-on.

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