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Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani state
With the failure of the negotiations in Qatar, now might be a good time to rethink our policy towards Afghanistan.
The Taliban are clearly not interested in sharing power and will wage a civil war to attain absolute power. PHOTO: AGENCIES
A statement by the Afghan Taliban that it neither sought nor received permission from Pakistan to participate in peace talks with the US in Qatar may be technically accurate, but it hides a larger truth, which is that the Afghan Taliban do receive a certain quantum of state patronage. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Pakistan made it state policy to prop up the Taliban regime and then, after 9/11, to allow them to regroup and settle in the tribal areas. All of this was done to further the ruinous ‘strategic depth’ policy in the hope that the Taliban would act as our ‘B’ team in the event of war with India. The extent of our support for the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network is difficult to deny, at least in the eyes of the rest of the world, which sees, for instance, the safe haven in North Waziristan, as proof of this.
As for the peace talks in Qatar, while it is possible that the Afghan Taliban may have attended them of its own volition, it would be difficult to imagine that Pakistan wouldn’t have played its due role in them given that for some time it has been saying that the Americans should speak to the Taliban as well. The idea of negotiations was anathema to the Taliban and it would have taken some prodding from Pakistan to convince them of the wisdom of talking to the US. Pakistan’s endgame in Afghanistan after the US withdraws its troops is to have the Taliban in power to act as its proxy. As it happens, the talks proved to be a complete failure with the Taliban pulling out after balking at the US position.
The fact of the matter is that the Pakistani state needs to decide that it cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. The current policy of allowing some jihadis safe havens so that they may be used as proxies in our ‘foreign policy ventures’ has never worked in the past and is unlikely to work in future. With the failure of the negotiations in Qatar, now might be a good time to rethink our policy towards Afghanistan. The Taliban are clearly not interested in sharing power and will wage a civil war to attain absolute power. In such a scenario, we should not have that blood on our hands.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 1st, 2012.
Reader Comments (5)
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Nonsense… as said by Wikileaks, Pasha clearly stated we do not want Taliban to gain absolute power in Afghanistan! Pakistan is not supporting the Taliban! It is too afraid to do anything about the Haqqani network because of its absolute hold on madrassas. And the Haqqani network and the TTP are absolutely the same entities… But we cannot fight this war as US’s war, we must fight with caution understanding that quite a big minority does not support war in the tribal areas
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I think we are gone to far. Retreat from the old policy will be defeat. Yes the Taliban will try to occupy the absolute power. But this time pashtun will themselves not allow them for Absolute power .our memory is very we forget every thing! There is Hakmatyar who is still the popular leader of All Afghans nationalities and experienced political player of Afghanistan and he is also a good friend of the people of Pakistan.Recommend
This is one of the best Editorials I have read on this topic in any paper. Kudos to ET and its fair and balance policy. Your job is done but who is listening in the power corridors?
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The editorial of today paper is based on the facts and figure.The stance of the paper is very rational and it represents the true and democratic aspirations of the people.The other papers in Pakistan are twisting the facts and on the electronic media the so called anchors and resource persons are misguiding the people about the factual position of Pakistan about their role in eliminating the terrorism from the world.
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Completely disagree…..COAS has already told US official that no one can control Afghanistan
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