Kunduz: pointer to the future

Islamabad diary
Our past is a recurring nightmare, coming back to haunt us. Kunduz is at the farthest corner of Afghanistan but its capture by the Taliban is as much a huge setback for the Americans and the Afghan government as it is a warning to Pakistan. The warning being that the Taliban could again come to dominate the country. We have ample reason to shudder at that prospect.
What happens in Afghanistan should be the exclusive business and concern of the Afghans. But as we know from bitter experience events in Afghanistan cast a long shadow on this country. Our Afghan involvement – our playing around with fire in the name of ‘jihad’ – has less transformed Afghanistan than it has transformed us. The rise of Islamic extremism, the spread of schools and seminaries preaching bigotry and promoting medievalism…these are the gifts of our fatal Afghan involvement.
Yes, we have woken up from that nightmare. We are now taking a different course and Operation Zarb-e-Azb – the army fighting extremism – is telling evidence of this. But Kunduz, like a flash of lightning, reveals the difficulty and complexity of this course. For if the Taliban are resurgent in Afghanistan, and the fall of Kunduz is replicated, does this not affect us? Does this not become a factor in bolstering the fighting spirit of the Pakistani Taliban, the TTP?
The world has its eyes on Syria where Russian aircraft have carried out their first strikes against the Islamic State (Isil). But the turmoil in the world of Islam – from Afghanistan to Syria and Iraq, and further towards Libya in one direction and Yemen in another – is interconnected. It has one central theme: existing state structures coming under threat from variants of Islamic extremism.
But the US, which has done so much to stir things up and indeed sow the present whirlwind, is refusing to see this as a single mosaic with varying colours of light and shade on its extended surface. It is doing different things in different places. In Kunduz the US is engaged in firefighting. American airstrikes haven’t rolled back the Isil in Syria. Will they have a more devastating effect in Kunduz?
America’s Afghan venture was the longest war in American history. It may not have ended in a rout but the winding down of that venture is hard to differentiate from a defeat. Kunduz is proof of that pudding.
In this arc of conflict the only front where Islamic extremism has been pushed back is Pakistan. Not long ago Pakistan was virtually the centre of ‘international jihad’. Let’s not go into how this happened. The Americans had a hand, and our short-sightedness was a factor, and the heavens too chipped in by creating the right circumstances for the promotion of ‘jihad’. This was the Pakistani nightmare but Pakistan has turned away from it – laid itself on the table and done some psychoanalysis.
But expect not our American friends to understand, much less appreciate, this turnaround. As so often in their dealings with this country they are once again in suspicious and finger-pointing mode: not able to resist the temptation of blaming Pakistan for Afghan failures and indulging in such petulance as withholding ‘coalition support funds’. And again, as so often in the past, the mood on Capitol Hill is not very favourable towards Pakistan.
Meanwhile as regards Syria the US is fiercely pursuing two mutually contradictory aims: Isil’s defeat and Bashar al-Assad’s downfall. This approach hasn’t worked so far and is unlikely to be any more fruitful in future. But the Americans are insisting on riding these two horses at the same time.
Into this vacuum or confusion of American leadership has stepped Vladimir Putin who realises what the Americans choose not to, that Assad’s downfall destroys what’s left of the Syrian state and unleashes more chaos. So, playing a bold hand, he has committed himself to Assad’s survival. The Russian military presence in Syria has been beefed up. The first airstrikes against Isil have been launched and there is an agreement in place for Russia, Syria, Iran and Iraq to coordinate efforts against Isil.
Putin has also offered cooperation to the Americans but the latter, distracted by the pursuit of multiple objectives and in the process blustering more and achieving less, are feeling hot under the collar. Trying to isolate Putin over Ukraine, the Americans are finding it hard to shake his hand over Syria.
Our Saudi friends, victims of their prejudices, are also responsible for the horrendous scale of the Syrian crisis. They can’t abide Assad for he is not only Shia (an Alawite really) but beholden to Iran and Shiite Hezbollah. So instead of pooling efforts to fight Isil they are arming and financing elements hostile to Assad.
There are thus two coalitions against Isil: Putin’s effective coalition comprising those forces actually fighting Isil; and Obama’s feckless coalition which is peppering Isilwith birdshot, when it is not strengthening Isil through its contradictions.
At the height of their Afghan involvement the Americans were pumping 7-10 billion dollars a month – not yearly – into Afghanistan. When it comes to Pakistan they become cost accountants. The Chinese are into other projects and development aid. Direct funds which you need for running a war is not their way of doing things. The Saudis are bankrolling and sustaining the Sisi regime in Egypt. They are propping up the Assad opposition. They are into their war in Yemen.
Pakistan, as already stated, is the only country holding its own against the rising tide of Islamic extremism – the turmoil threatening the stability of the world of Islam – and it is on its own. There are no heavy financiers backing its cause, no manna falling from the skies.
So it is up to Pakistan to mobilise its resources and cut down on useless expenditure like the senseless development projects beloved of the present elected government. There is a time for everything. This is not the time for such luxuries as signal-free corridors. It is the age-old question: guns or butter? If we are in a state of war – and can there be anything deadlier or of more momentous importance than the one we are in? – then the requirements of this war have to be the supreme imperative, everything e else later.
The UN General Assembly should have been an occasion to analyse the turbulence in the world of Islam and Pakistan’s role as a lone bastion of stability. But the PM got stuck on that hoariest chestnut of all: relations with India. Pakistan faces bigger challenges than India. We needlessly flatter India when we focus all our attention on it. And the world yawns…because it has heard it all before.
Leadership, leadership…this is the call of the times. Putin is showing it in Syria; the Americans have failed to rise to the occasion. Kunduz is a reminder of the dangers that could yet unfold in Afghanistan. These are thus troubling and challenging times for Pakistan… and least of all at this juncture can it afford weak and floundering leadership.
Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com