Pakistan and
Afghanistan
February
16, 2007
Is Pakistan
to blame for the continuing war in Afghanistan,
and if it is, why is it doing so? This question
is hotly debated by all the parties involved in
the ongoing struggle to stabilize and reestablish
an effective Afghan state.
During last year Afghan President Hamid Karzai
has repeatedly blamed Pakistan for providing support
and safe haven to the “Taliban” who
are continuing to attack Afghan government and
NATO forces in the southern Afghan provinces bordering
Pakistan. On the flip side, President Musharraf
has totally dismissed these accusations as false,
and lays the blame for the war in Afghanistan
on the Afghans themselves.
Karzai, along with some NATO generals, claims
that Taliban commanders have safe havens inside
Pakistan. They meet openly in Quetta. South Waziristan,
where Pakistan signed a deal with the local population
to pull out the army in exchange for their peaceful
behavior, is supposedly now a major source of
Taliban fighters coming over to Afghanistan. Karzai
also claims that Pakistan does not do enough to
control its border and prevent the flow of militants
across to Afghanistan. Finally, there are occasional
charges that figures in Pakistani military intelligence,
the ISI, are helping Taliban fighters obtain weapons
and supplies. Given that these Taliban fighters
are attacking American units, this would mean
that while Pakistan is supposedly allied with
the US, it is also actively helping a force that
is fighting and killing American soldiers.
Pakistanis reject these accusations. First, they
point out that it was Pakistan that killed or
captured almost every single major figure in Al-Qaeda.
Over 700 Pakistani soldiers have been killed along
the border in operations against the militants.
In addition, it is not Pakistanis that make up
these fighters who are coming across, but Afghan
refugees, of whom over two million are still in
Pakistan. Why doesn’t the Afghan government
properly resettle these people? Wouldn’t
that solve the problem? Pakistan has offered to
fence and mine the border with Afghanistan, but
Karzai did not want that, which suggests he is
being rather two-faced. Pakistan has done much
for Afghanistan. It took in a huge refugee population
during the Soviet war, and it supported the Mujahideen
who finally liberated the country. After 9/11,
the Pakistani government abandoned the Taliban
regime, and has been helpful in repatriating millions
of Afghans. It provides much of Afghanistan’s
imports, and is the main link between Afghanistan
and the outside world.
So why are there these points of friction? The
current Afghan government is dominated by the
non-Pashtun minorities, and has been since the
Taliban were overthrown. The main source of militants
fighting the government is from the Pashtuns,
and the primary driver of this is the feeling
that they are left out of shaping Afghanistan.
There has been very little reconstruction or security
in the Pashtun south of Afghanistan. One cannot
have a stable Afghanistan without satisfying the
needs of the Pashtuns. This is why the real problem
is political and needs a political settlement.
There is in fact no Taliban at this point. The
organized Taliban movement was defeated and scattered
after 9/11. “Taliban” is a term now
used to describe any Pashtun opposed to the government.
But it is a rhetorical trick used to delegitimize
the Pashtun opposition to the government.
The other stumbling block is the Afghan desire
to claim parts of Pakistan as theirs. The Afghan-Pakistan
border is based on the Durand Line which defined
the northern border of British India. The Afghans
have never recognized the Durand Line, and this
causes concern among Pakistanis that Afghanistan
harbors ambitions against them. The coziness of
the Karzai government with India heightens Pakistani
anxiety. While Pakistan is not causing the Pashtun
rebellion, it is happy to look the other way as
a means of applying some pressure on the Afghans
to finally recognize the Durand Line. This was
also the reason why Pakistan was willing to fence
and mine the border but the Afghans were totally
against it. Karzai, if he is serious, should offer
to recognize the Durand Line in exchange for the
vigorous assistance of Pakistan in ending the
rebellion.
In addition, it is absolutely vital to resettle
the remaining three million Afghan refugees in
Pakistan back in Afghanistan. Since the defeat
of the Taliban, over four million Afghans have
returned home, but there remain three million
from whom the rebellion against Kabul can recruit.
If they were back home in Afghanistan, there would
be far less violence to blame Pakistan for.
A stable, prosperous Afghanistan is in Pakistan’s
best interest. It would be a major purchaser of
Pakistani exports, it would be the gateway to
Central Asia, and as it develops, would offer
excellent opportunities for Pakistani companies
to invest and expand. The geography of the two
nations binds them together. It is unfortunate
that the current conflict stands in the way of
this. Comments can reach me at Nali@socal.rr.com
