Pakistan — no point in supporting the Haqqanis

For some time, the report from Pakistan has been that India has become Pakistan’s second enemy instead of being number one, a position now being occupied by America. It does not come as a surprise because the history of the love affair between Washington and Islamabad is a long one.

Strangely New Delhi and Islamabad never became friends, even though they share the same culture, stock, geography and a common border of thousands of kilometres. Both China and America have taken advantage for their own purpose. The latest warning by President Barack Obama that America would act in its own interest without taking Pakistan into account may be harsh but nothing new. Washington’s policies have never been altruistic, especially when it comes to South Asia.

India could probably have changed history if it had trusted Pakistan at least in the initial years. For example, General Mohammad Ayub Khan, after assuming power in Pakistan, offered New Delhi a ‘defence pact’. India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, a democrat to the core, rebuffed the proposal, with the remark: Defence against whom? Imagine how different things would have been in the last five decades if India and Pakistan had a defence pact!

The training of terrorists in Pakistan has not only harmed India, it has hurt Pakistan as well. Islamabad woke up too late and still has not realised its folly. But it may not be able to do much to curb terrorism when a substantial portion of the population has been influenced by fundamentalism, which sees jihad as an integral part of their faith. The strategic partnership between India and Afghanistan should not be seen by Islamabad as an anti-Pakistan step. It would have been better if Islamabad had been in the loop before the treaty was signed. Yet, since Pakistan has spurned such gestures earlier, New Delhi and Kabul preferred to go separate. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that “India is only a friend but Pakistan is a twin brother” alleging at the same time that Pakistan had given shelter to the Haqqanis.

Karzai’s problem is similar to the one which US Admiral Mike Mullen raised before retiring when he said that the Haqqani network was “a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence agency”. Mullen went further and had warned that if Pakistan did not discipline Haqqani’s network, America would do so, implying that this may go so far as the Americans operating inside Pakistani territory to deal with the Haqqani network.

Probably, all the three; India, Pakistan and Afghanistan can have a friendship treaty. But Islamabad will have to give up looking at Afghanistan through its so-called ‘strategic depth’ policy. Kabul has been resenting this for years because it does not want to be Islamabad’s satellite. Afghanistan is a sovereign country and has the right to formulate policies the way it deems fit.

Now that 2014 is the deadline for the withdrawal of US forces, it is all the more necessary for New Delhi, Islamabad and Kabul to come together to curb terrorism from the region. The point is not whether America would stick to the deadline, but whether the proposed exit by the US can bring Afghanistan and other countries in the region to chalk out a joint strategy to root out terrorism in the absence of American and Nato forces.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2011.