Tackling two-front conflict situation

Both New Delhi and Kabul have seemingly become willing promoters and protectors of US interests in the region presumably in return for Washington’s willingness to provide the two with the required defensive military/diplomatic cover against their respective self-perceived enemies — Pakistan in the case of Afghanistan and China as well as Pakistan in the case of India.

That is perhaps why Pakistan feels it is currently facing a two-front conflict situation attention to which was drawn the other day by Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Lt General Nasser Janjua.

The question is, whether closing of the Afghan border in anger is the right way to go about protecting and promoting our own national interests in the region or as the NSA has suggested by mending ties with Afghanistan because as he said our future is connected with that country?

The answer is clearly by mending ties with Afghanistan which would enable us not only to end the two-front conflict situation but also help us translate into reality our vision of becoming as the NSA said ‘a massive trade corridor.’

But the idea that we could become a massive trading corridor with three trade corridors running through the length of Pakistan from its northern end bordering China to its southern end in Gwadar seaport in Balochistan (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) while no trading activity is taking place across the country’s breadth running from our north-western end bordering Afghanistan as well as the western end bordering Iran to its eastern end bordering India sounds more like a non-starter. At best, CPEC in its present design would end up becoming a conduit for the passage of Chinese exports from its land-locked western part to the world markets and imports from these markets to China with Pakistan perhaps earning nothing more than a hefty toll tax along with perhaps the Chinese-funded physical infrastructure and power stations established to keep the three corridors and the link roads, rail-roads and the pipelines well-oiled and in ship-shape.

But for decades Pakistan has been aspiring to become a busy global trading hub not just a trade corridor for China alone. For realising this aspiration Islamabad will have to create on its own conditions conducive to trading to take place not only from Casablanca in Morocco (Maghreb), Africa, to Urumqi in western China via Pakistan but also from Central Asia, via Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to Myanmar and beyond in East Asia.

Both India and Afghanistan, in part justifiably, but largely because of the instigation from the US which it is doing in its own global and regional interests, especially to contain China, blame Pakistan for their respective terror woes and therefore seem bent upon squeezing Pakistan from two sides, creating for it a two-front conflict situation. The two military campaigns against terrorism mounted by the Pakistan Army, the Zarb-e-Azb in 2014 and the Radd-ul-Fasaad early this year have almost broken the back of terrorism. This issue is not likely to remain a matter of conflict in the region for long.

Meanwhile, Islamabad on its part could take a couple of initiatives like offering Afghanistan and India a trade corridor through Pakistan for New Delhi to reach Central Asia and for Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan to reach India and beyond.

Also, Pakistan could offer to set up a free trade zone for Afghanistan in place of the current free terror zone which straddles the Durand Line, thus rendering this line irrelevant for all practical purposes fulfilling one of the ardent wishes of the Afghans who don’t recognise the internationally recognised border.

Also, India and Afghanistan know that today they are not living in a unipolar world but a multipolar one. And no matter how close they are to the US, they would be extra careful not to be perceived as its servile camp followers. Moreover, the two know that it is geo-economics rather than geo-politics that is currently guiding the policies of most of the countries. With Pakistan adopting the right policies at the right time and in keeping with its own national socio-economic interests perhaps the right kind of environment would be created for New Delhi and Afghanistan to see the futility of pursuing Pakistan-hostile policies notwithstanding the deceitful promptings from a waning superpower.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2017.

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