Afghanistan and the Regional Geopolitics

A win-win game or zero-sum affair?

STATE CRAFT BY HAPPYMON JACOB

THE TALIBAN were born in Pakistani refugee camps, educated in Pakistani madrasas and learnt their fighting skills from Mujaheddin Pushtuns based in Pakistan. Their families carried Pakistani identity cards”, wrote one of the leading experts on the Taliban and Afghanistan, Ahmed Rashid, in his celebrated book Taliban: The story of Afghan warlords. When the Frankenstein - the Taliban – came back to haunt the Pakistani state – its originator - in the recent past, Pakistan watchers began to believe that the Pakistani state will go all out against the remnant Taliban elements in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Pakistani state did so, but in parts and half-heartedly, which has gone on to further embolden the Taliban elements in the region.

It is now widely perceived that while most of those who run the political establishment in Pakistan want to see that the ongoing talibanisation process does not take further roots in the state and society of Pakistan, many disgruntled elements in the Pakistani armed forces and the all-powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), apart from the Islamic radical parties in Pakistan, continue to support the Taliban so that they can exert complete control on Kabul and bring about a ‘true Islamic’ state in Pakistan.

The new regional geo-politics in Afghanistan has been played out by a number of global and regional parties – the United States, NATO, Iran, Pakistan and India. While the United States and the NATO seem to be increasingly disinterested in continuing their engagement with Afghanistan, India and Pakistan seem to be clearly furthering their strategic interests in the war-torn nation.

Pakistan’s strategic interests in Afghanistan and its aggressive policies there, which date back to the 1970s, stem from both strategic necessity and geo-political greed. One of the primary reasons for its pro-active and aggressive Afghan policies is the successive Afghan governments’ firm refusal to accept the Durand Line which currently separates the two countries as a settled issue. Afghan Prime Minister, Mohammad Harkim Khan, declared as early as in 1947: “If an independent Pushtunistan cannot be set up, the frontier province should join Afghanistan. Our neighbour (Pakistan) will realise that our country with its population and trade, needs (an opening) to the sea”. Since then the Afghan irredentist tendency has only grown in intensity: various Afghan leaders such as President Nur Muhammad Taraki, Prime Minister Daud Khan, the Taliban leadership and now Hamid Karzai have all refused to accept the Durand Line as a settled issue.

Second is the issue of an independent Pushtunistan which many Afghan political leaders have fanned to the disquiet of the Pakistani leadership. When put together, Pushtun nationalism and Afghan irredentist tendencies have enough in them to give sleepless nights to Pakistan. Thirdly, many Pakistani strategic thinkers such as Pakistani General Aslam Beg have emphasized the need for Pakistan to have a strategic depth in Afghanistan. The question of strategic depth needs to be seen in the context of Pakistan’s access to energy-rich Central Asia.

Yet another Pakistani concern regarding Afghanistan is the latter’s traditionally close friendship with the former’s arch rival – India. The Indo-Afghan friendship had almost always flourished but for a brief interregnum during the Mujahideen war and the Taliban rule. The present Afghan leadership under Hamid Karzai has been proactively trying to enhance Afghan engagement with India which India is only glad to extend. India sees very tangible strategic results from a close relationship with Kabul: India is building parts of a highway from Chabahar (in Iran) through Afghanistan to Tajikistan (Chabahar-kabul-Kunduz-Badakhshan) which will enable India to have a transport corridor to the otherwise inaccessible Central Asian region. India’s goodwill in Kabul is a result of a variety of Indian initiatives: its liberal development aid to Kabul (as the fifth largest donor, it has already pledged more than $750 million to build roads, train teachers and bureaucrats, and putting in place the necessary infrastructure for the country), the large number of Indians (around 4,000) working in various developmental projects in Afghanistan, immediate steps towards reconstruction after the ouster of the Taliban in 2001 (helped reopen the Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital in Kabul, sent medical missions to assist in humanitarian work, donated Airbuses to enable Ariana airlines to resume operations and started plying hundreds of city buses in Afghan cities for public transit facilities), and the traditional ties it has had with the war-torn state.

Hamid KArzai has visited India six times ever since 2001 and the recent visit of Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak to visit the headquarters of the army’s 15th corps in Srinagar J&K to see counter-insurgency operations raised quite a few eyebrows in Islamabad. More importantly, Pakistan thinks India fans insurgencies within Pakistan from its bases in Afghanistan.

While both Pakistan’s and India’s engagement in Afghanistan is to gain the much-needed diplomatic and strategic leverage in that strategically important location, Pakistan, unlike India, has been trying to influence the developments by sheer muscle power rather than soft power and deft diplomatic skills which the Afghans have come to strongly resent. While this has brought New Delhi and Kabul closer, this has not been to the liking of Islamabad which is now trying its best to spoil that.

Last week’s attack on the Indian Mission in Kabul was not the first of its kind – allegedly sponsored by ISI – against Indian engagement in Afghanistan. In 2007, the Indian Border Roads Organization reportedly came under 30 rocket attacks while it was constructing the 124-mile stretch of road across Nimroz Province.

Pakistan’s concerns, strategically speaking, are understandable: It does not afford to have enemies on both sides and be sandwiched between them. It has to preempt any such moves by India and Afghanistan. However, the Pakistani strategy in preempting that is only making its own position in Kabul more and more vulnerable. Pakistan needs to rethink its strategy in Afghanistan, and India and Afghanistan together could persuade Pakistan to get together for a tri-lateral regional initiative at countering extremism in the region and rebuilding Afghanistan making the geo-strategic game in Afghanistan a win-win one rather than a zero-sum one.

Source: Greater Kashmir, JULY 16, 2008 , URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=16_7_2008&ItemID=3&cat=11