The key to solving the puzzle of Afghanistan is Pakistan

Recent setbacks in Afghanistan — from the fall of Kunduz to the errant U.S. bombing of a hospital in that city — again raise a question. Why, after 14 years of American military efforts, is Afghanistan still so fragile? The country has a democratically elected government widely viewed as legitimate. Poll after poll suggests that the Taliban are unpopular. The Afghan army fights fiercely and loyally. And yet, the Taliban always come back.

The answer to this puzzle can be found in a profile of the Taliban’s new leader, Akhtar Mohammad Mansour. It turns out that Mansour lives part time in Quetta, the New York Times reports, “in an enclave where he and some other Taliban leaders . . . have built homes.” His predecessor, Mohammad Omar, we now know, died a while ago in Karachi. And of course, we remember that Osama bin Laden lived for many years in a compound in Abbottabad. All three of these cities are in Pakistan.

We cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan without recognizing that the insurgency against that government is shaped, aided and armed from across the border by one of the world’s most powerful armies. Periodically, someone inside or outside the U.S. government points this out. Yet no one knows quite what to do, so it is swept under the carpet and policy stays the same. But this is not an incidental fact. It is fundamental, and unless it is confronted, the Taliban will never be defeated. It is an old adage that no counterinsurgency has ever succeeded when the rebels have had a haven. In this case, the rebels have a nuclear-armed sponsor.

Pakistan has mastered the art of pretending to help the United States while actually supporting its most deadly foes. Take the many efforts that U.S. officials have recently made to start talks with the Taliban. It turns out that we were talking to ghosts. Omar has been dead for two years, while Pakistani officials have been facilitating “contacts” and “talks” with him. This is part of a pattern. Pakistani officials, from former president Pervez Musharraf down, categorically denied that bin Laden or Omar was living in Pakistan — despite the fact that former Afghan president Hamid Karzai repeatedly pointed this out publicly. “I do not believe Omar has ever been to Pakistan,” Musharraf said in 2007.

The Pakistani army has been described as the “godfather” of the Taliban. That might understate its influence. Pakistan was the base for the U.S.-supported mujahideen as they battled the Soviet Union in the 1980s. After the Soviets retreated from Afghanistan in 1989, the United States withdrew almost as quickly, and Pakistan entered that strategic void. It pushed forward the Taliban, a group of young Pashtun jihadis schooled in radical Islam at Pakistani madrasas. (“Talib” means student.) Now history is repeating itself. As the United States draws down its forces, Pakistan again seeks to expand its influence through its long-standing proxy.

Why does Pakistan support the Taliban? Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, whose book “Magnificent Delusions” is an essential guide, says that “Pakistan has always worried that the natural order of things would be for Afghanistan to come under the sway of India, the giant of the subcontinent. The Pakistani army came to believe that it could only gain leverage in Afghanistan through religious zealots. Afghanistan’s secular groups and ethnic nationalists are all suspicious of Pakistan, so the only path in is through those who see a common, religious ideology.” This strategy is not new, Haqqani points out, noting that funding for such groups began in the mid-1970s, before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979.

What should the United States do? First, says Haqqani, it needs to see reality for what it is: “When you are lied to and you don’t respond, you are encouraging more lies.” He argues that Washington has to get much tougher with the Pakistani military and make clear that its double-dealing must stop. To do this would be good for Afghanistan and stability in that part of the world, but it would also be good for Pakistan.
Pakistan is a time bomb. It ranks 43rd in the world in terms of its economy, according to the World Bank, but has the sixth-largest armed forces. It has the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal, and the most opaque. It maintains close ties with some of the world’s most brutal terrorists. By some estimates, its military consumes 26 percent of all tax receipts, while the country has 5.5 million children who don’t attend school . As long as this military and its mind-set are unchecked and unreformed, the United States will face a strategic collapse as it withdraws its forces from the region.

By: Fareed Zakaria’s, Washington Post
Fareed Zakaria writes a foreign affairs column for The Post. He is also the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and a contributing editor for The Atlantic.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...51445109634254

Pak-Afghan relations and reprisals

By Imtiaz Gul

“Gradual squeeze” is the new phrase Pakistani officials are invoking when responding to questions on what they are doing to blunt the Taliban ability to plan and organise operations inside Afghanistan. Taliban leaders are being told to move families and businesses elsewhere and refrain from cross-border operations.

Recent arrests in Balochistan of several Taliban leaders, including Ahmadullah Muti alias Mullah Nanai, Suleman Agha alias Samad Sani, and Mullah Sani appeared to be part of this squeeze, which also prompted three Taliban leaders to rush to Pakistan from Doha, where their political office is located. Taliban were told to close ranks for the peace process and follow the path that the Hezb-e-Islami chose for its peace with Kabul. Sartaj Aziz, the foreign affairs advisor, also believes the peace deal could serve as a good model for other Taliban factions to follow suit as Pakistan presses these factions to focus on talks instead of fighting.

But will such statements correct the deep-seated perceptions of the nexus between the Haqqani Network and the Pakistani establishment? Fearful of a possible backlash by the Pakistani Pashtoon-Punjabi militants stalking parts of mainland Pakistan, officials remain extremely careful. They would not want to take on all those denounced by the Afghan government as the “enemies of innocent Afghan women and children.” This begs another big question: if stymied by the fears of a blow-back, will Pakistan still be able to convince Afghan or American officials of its “squeeze on Taliban?”

And more importantly, will reiterations of support for the Afghan peace and reconciliation prevent gory attacks such as the one on the Police Academy in Quetta, or the one that left nearly 13 dozen lawyers dead end of June this year in the same town. Probably not, for the simple reason that Pakistan is damned if it does. And it is damned if it doesn’t.

Critics disregard the proxy war factor and the pawns that are used in this; the TTP, IS/Daesh and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami and The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). General Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, also underscored the impact that these proponents of the trans-border Islamist ideology are having on the security landscape. In a recent interview, Nicholson conceded that the TTP and the IMU have filled the ranks of Daesh based in the east Afghan province of Ningarhar. In an NBC TV interview, he also admitted the difficulties that the 2,600 km border represents: “It’s still a very porous border region and we do see insurgents moving both ways across the border, some from Afghanistan to Pakistan and then of course the Haqqanis and the Taliban moving from Pakistan into Afghanistan.” Such ground facts often go missing in bilateral discourses; even during a recent Pak-Afghan Track 11 dialogue called “Beyond Boundaries”, Pakistan’s support for the Taliban and its administrative measures consumed most of the time. The dialogue ended on a positive note but Pakistan’s current and past role vis-a-vis the Haqqani Network remained a contested issue.

Such unofficial interactions provide opportunities for small course-correction of tactics deployed by respective establishments. New visa restrictions (Afghans barred from visit of Cantonment areas) or mistreatment of Afghan refugees were some of the issues that the delegates brought to the attention of Sartaj Aziz and Minister Qadir Baloch.

Similarly, many Afghans would have the world believe that violence in the region originates in Pakistan. They would also refuse to accept terrorism in Pakistan as reprisal by the Indian or Afghan establishments. But all shall have to concur that instead of dumping everything on Pakistan, only common efforts will help us against forces of terror. Sanctuaries — whether in Waziristan or Nuristan and Ningarhar — shall have to be taken down.

The writer heads the independent Centre for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad and is author of Pakistan: Pivot of Hizbut Tahrir’s Global Caliphate

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26th, 2016.

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