‘Outrageous’ intelligence deal

Reaction ISI-NDS MoU has exposed Afghan leaders' deep-rooted dislike, if not contempt, of Pakistan

In a bizarre though expected display of their contemptuous opposition to Pakistan, a large number of Afghans took umbrage to the recent Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on counter-terror and security cooperation between the ISI and Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS). The head of the NDS, Rahmatullah Nabil, who refused to sign the MoU, his predecessor, Amrullah Saleh, sitting parliamentarians and former president Hamid Karzai joined the chorus against what they likened to a treasonous act. Their reaction has exposed their deep-rooted dislike, if not contempt, of Pakistan. Even Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval jumped into the fray to run down the ISI-NDS. The vitriolic reaction defied logic and also exposed the lobbies that are at work against any fence-mending between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The denouncement of the MoU and the calls to cancel it literally stopped short of questioning Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s integrity and commitment to the country by running down his attempts to smooth off the fractious relationship with Pakistan.

All the Afghan detractors of the MoU essentially wishfully want Pakistan to eliminate all non-state actors and snap their social support with a single click; i.e., a precondition for any cooperation deal. This desire naively overestimates their own state’s internal divisions — within the unity government as well as among insurgent groups.

Their proposition also grossly underestimates the likely internal blowback in case Pakistan goes all out after the Afghan Taliban by using their businesses and families residing there to pressure them into talks. Pakistan certainly has leverage but this leverage cannot be invoked at the cost of sociopolitical sensitivities on both sides of the border. The country has already enough fires to extinguish and should not be expected to add more to its raging troubles.

Recent discussions with stakeholders in Washington and Beijing also entailed a more sympathetic view of Pakistan rooted in the developments on ground, including the unusual spate of exchanges between the military and civilian leadership from both countries.

US officials still find Pakistan short on its commitments as far as “delivering the Taliban to the negotiations table” is concerned, but they do acknowledge the limitations in doing so.

Afghan critics continue to look at Islamabad through their old corrugated glasses as a country that stupidly “refuses to learn from history and still wants to subjugate Afghanistan as its fifth province.”

Though Pakistan’s security establishment has yet to demonstrate its verbal denunciation of all proponents of violence through credible actions, the onus of “demonstrable actions” does not lie on Pakistan only.

Are the US and India doing anything that could disincentivise some of the non-state actors such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba for the security establishment?

A lot of what the country faces today — some US diplomats in Islamabad admit — is the direct consequence of the geopolitical games that began after the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Afghanistan.

Beyond doubt, a lot depends on the internal course correction. Solutions to many problems have to spring from within but this won’t happen easily as long as external factors keep weighing down heavily on both the government and the security establishment.

Any cooperation requires, first and foremost, confidence building measures which could help restore mutual trust and eventually lead to formal collaborative mechanisms. These cannot only build bilateral trust but also bring about structured pressure on the non-state actors.

Afghan and Indian officials must realise that without such arrangements, they cannot hope to extract meaningful cooperation from Pakistan. Until key stakeholders in Afghanistan and India shun their present, at times illogically-belligerent attitude, fighting terrorism jointly will remain elusive.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 27^th,  2015.

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