The question of competence

By Saleem Safi
May 28, 2016

The killing of Mullah Muhammad Akhtar Mansour on Pakistani soil and by the US seems even more catastrophic than it is if analysed against the current complex and difficult Pakistani relations with Afghanistan and the US.

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All this started with the follies of our own leaders and conspiracies of our rivals. When the civil war for power was at its peak among the Afghan mujahideen, a faction of the mujahideen groomed by us broke away, called themselves the Northern Alliance and looked to Iran, India and Russia for political and financial support. To deal with this new challenge Pakistan fully supported the Taliban who then established very close ties with Al-Qaeda.

The international power equilibrium demanded that the same Al-Qaeda that was considered an asset by the Western world had to be tagged as the enemy after the First Gulf War. So the US pressurised the Taliban to end their support for Al-Qaeda. When they refused this pressure shifted to Pakistan to end its support for the Taliban. However, both the Taliban and Pakistan were not able to make this happen.

After 9/11 the US gave an ultimatum to Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf agreed to side with the US and its allies; and within days the US stormed the Taliban government. As a reward, the US redefined its relations with Pakistan. With Pakistan’s help and support, the Taliban government dismantled in a few days and Hamid Karzai became the president of Afghanistan. Pakistan, to ensure Karzai’s victory, went to the extent of using its influence in all refugee camps as an electioneering tool.

However, Pakistan had to pay a heavy price for these decisions. Al-Qaeda now targeted Pakistan; and supporters of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan turned the country into hell. Unfortunately, this was seen by the CIA as an opportunity. Instead of extending support to Pakistan, it encouraged India to play an active role in Afghanistan and organised and supported the anti-Pakistan lobby in Afghanistan. This agenda extended to the limit that Afghan soil was used against China and Russia by CIA and MI-6.

That was the right time to register reservations on this with the US and allies, and protest their anti-Pakistan moves. However, Musharraf did not dare do that. And thus, it was decided that dual policy would be answered with dual policy.

From here starts the tragic story of TTP activities in Pakistan that resulted in complete confusion in security institutions on the question of how to deal with extremists. The US tried a dual game with Pakistan, and Pakistan tried the same with Afghanistan. The ultimate result was a dirty game in the region.

During this messy war, the US and Afghanistan keep blaming Pakistan. However, instead of blaming the US for the same duality, Pakistan adopted a very passive path. Our policymakers thought it enough to use proxies in media and politics to wage propaganda against the US and Afghanistan. As could be predicted, this proved counterproductive and increased confusion in the minds of Pakistanis – who became even more confused on how to tell friend from foe.

This dual game by all states resulted in negative consequences for all. The US faced terrible failure after spending trillions of dollars; Afghanistan is fragile and bloody; and Pakistan faces every type of extremism. Even India got nothing. However, world public opinion sees this game differently. Pakistan has so far badly failed in documenting the dual policy of the US, Afghanistan and India. The US, though, killed Osama bin Laden and dozens of Taliban leaders on our soil, and tried to prove Karzai’s contention that Pakistan is the epicentre of extremism.

Pakistan’s new team of policymakers tried to make a clean start over the Afghan issue. With the help of Ashraf Ghani, they agreed to not tolerate non-state actors and their activities. However, such complex issues, rooted in decades of wrongdoing, cannot be fixed by over-simplified solutions and through bilateral means.

And in the meanwhile Pervez Musharraf, to seem relevant, boasted in national and international media that Pakistan had adopted a dual policy over the Afghan Taliban. Sartaj Aziz went ahead and claimed we had a degree of influence over the Taliban. All this again proved counterproductive; at one side it raised the expectation bar in Afghanistan and at the other, Pakistan was not able to exert its influence on Taliban. This again ended in very bitter relations with Afghanistan.

At that stage, the US forced Afghanistan for yet another and final effort for peace. This time on the proposal of Pakistan and Afghanistan, China was also included in the effort. It was agreed that Afghanistan and the US would address Pakistan’s reservations and in turn, Pakistan would force the Taliban to sit on the talks table. Since there is a serious competence deficit on the Afghan issue – from the PM to Tariq Fatemi – they claimed a degree of influence over the Taliban that was far beyond the reality.

Pakistan commands very little influence over the Taliban. Even Mullah Akhtar Mansour adopted stronger policies than Mullah Omar. It is also very evident that the Taliban are in contact with regional and international players like Iran, Qatar and Russia. While Pakistan declares its inability to force its decisions over the Taliban, the US and Afghanistan insist we continue. All this while Afghanistan and the US were not ready to accept the demands of the Taliban for any meaningful negotiations. The US then also demanded that if we were unable to pressurise the Taliban, we had to conduct an operation against the Afghan Taliban on our soil. It was obvious that for so many reasons Pakistan could not accept that demand.

The fact is that the QCG effort has failed, but no country is ready to take responsibility for this failure. So they are all pretending that the effort is continuing. Mullah Mansour’s killing by the US is an effort to prove that Pakistan is responsible for all the wrongdoings of all countries involved in Afghanistan. It is also a message from the US that if Pakistan is not ready to take action against the Taliban, the US will. This incident is also more significant than Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, because Mansour’s dead body and his identity with fake name and Pakistani passport were all in front of us.

All this is heading towards a very dangerous situation. I wonder if our leadership has even the bare minimum required competence on the Afghan issue. And if not, where will all this end?

The writer works for Geo TV.

Email: saleem.safijanggroup.com.pk

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