Reasons for concern

With the death of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, the Taliban leader, in a drone strike, Pakistan once again finds itself under international scrutiny. The nature of the attack and the unscathed passport of “Wali Mohammad” beg a thorough investigation. The incident has on the one hand dealt a severe blow to whatever has been going on in the name of peace efforts under the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG). On the other, it draws Pakistan into yet another round of global debate on the issue of support to the Afghan Taliban and their presence here. At the same time, it exposes the country to new threats, such as direct drone strikes and latest regional realignments such as the Iranian-Indian-Afghan transit agreement on the Chabahar port. India plans to invest up to $500 million in a deal to develop Chabahar into a strategic port in Iran, precisely the way China is investing in the Gwadar port for connectivity to its western Xinjiang region.

These developments contain several lessons for Pakistan because they indicate an ever-increasing encirclement of the country for multiple reasons. Firstly, it appears clear that the US will deploy drones wherever it finds elements detrimental to its interests — regardless of the location. And President Obama made it quite clear during his press stakeout in Vietnam onMay 23 that “Our job is to help Afghanistan secure its own country, not to have our men and women in uniform engage in that fight for them. On the other hand, where we have a high-profile leader who has been consistently part of operations and plans to potentially harm US personnel and who has been resistant to the kinds of peace talks and reconciliation … then it is my responsibility as commander-in-chief not to stand by, but to make sure that we send a clear signal to the Taliban and others that we're going to protect our people.”

Secondly, the Afghan Taliban are being treated as an extension of al Qaeda as well as a criminal syndicate. By implication, any support or facilitation for them will be treated with similar contempt. President Ashraf Ghani underscored this during a talk at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London.

"The question is, is the Mansoor group a drug cartel masquerading as a political organisation? Or a political organisation using a drug cartel as its means? You have to judge this question. It can no longer be avoided,” Ghani had asked. So, by sanctioning the elimination of Mullah Mansoor, President Obama not only took out both the threat to American lives in Afghanistan but also neutralised what President Ghani considered to be the lynchpin of drug cartels.

Thirdly, Pakistan will continue to face marginalisation through joint (Indo-Afghan-American) strategic communication and geo-political strategies. Elimination of Mullah Mansoor, in fact, is one of the high points of this strategy. Iran, it seems, is the latest addition to the club of countries that is wary of Pakistan’s policies which are perceived to pose a direct threat to that country's peace and trade initiatives.

Fourth, physically, it may be almost impossible to make Pakistan irrelevant in regional affairs but geo-politically it is already happening with the latest Indo-Iran-Afghan deal on the Chabahar port. Pakistan has already lost substantial Afghan transit trade to Iran. In the last few years, strangulating bureaucratic procedures at the Karachi port and bottlenecks during the journey upto Torkham have forced many Afghan importers to opt for Iran. Many of the Pakistani reservations are legitimate but the way they have been handled has been counter-productive. Besides leading to loss of business, Chabahar will likely emerge as a strategic counter-weight to the Gwadar port, a key element of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Fifth, Pakistani official noises over “violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and a breach of the UN Charter that guarantees the inviolability of the territorial integrity of its member states” also ring hollow and will matter little as long as Washington and Islamabad differ in approaches towards dealing with non-state actors. The caution by special adviser Tariq Fatemi, delivered to the US Ambassador David Hale that such actions — drone strikes — could adversely impact the ongoing efforts by the QCG, therefore, is naively misplaced — at least for now. Mansoor’s killing has already almost killed the QCG process.

Beyond doubt, Pakistan has endured near-fatal sufferings since 2001 and it continues to suffer. Yet, the way forward lies in reassessment of its policies. You cannot build a future on a narrative of victimhood alone. What is required is courageous course-correction grounded in realpolitik, and not in denial. 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2016.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.