Blaming Pakistan not to solve Afghanistan’s problems

Yet again Mr Ashraf Ghani, the erstwhile Afghan President,  blamed Pakistan for his government’s sinking fortunes. Taking advantage of Indian support at the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar, he declined Pakistan’s pledged US$500 million for development projects and then added that Afghanistan had suffered the highest number of casualties last year. He apparently blamed Pakistan for the military losses his army has been suffering this year also.

To be exact, Mr Ashraf Ghani is ignoring the ground realities.According to one US think-tank’s recent report, the Afghan  forces are “incapable of rolling back gains made by a resurgent  Taliban over the past several months” without a larger US military presence in the country.

Additionally, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, in its quarterly report to the US Congress, stated: “Of the 407 districts within the 34 provinces, 258 districts were under government control (88 districts) or influence (170), 33 districts (in 16 provinces) were under insurgent control (8) or influence (25), and 116 districts were ‘contested.” The report was released on October 30, 2016.

Meanwhile, the US Forces-Afghanistan, or USFOR-A, said this year that the Afghan government controls or influences 68.5% of the population (22 million) and controls 61.3% of Afghanistan’s territory (350,000 square kilometers), and the Taliban controls or influences 8.1% (2.8 million) and controls 8.7% of the ground (66,000 square kilometers). The remaining 28.5% of the population (7.3 million) and 22.7% of the land (183,000 square kilometers) is contested.

The bad news for Mr Ghani is that several experts, including American analysts, believe that the USFOR-A’s report is rather optimistic; they think the Taliban control more areas in  Afghanistan than were disclosed.

Ghani’s allegations do not take account of the fact that the US officials have admitted that 5,500 Afghan security forces died in just 2015 and that was far more than NATO’s dead in one decade of war in Afghanistan. Also, two-thirds of Afghan military personnel are simply deserting the services.

General Campbell, in histestimony before the US Senate  Armed Services Committee, stated last year that building up the Afghan military was “akin to building an airplane while in  flight”. Isn’t Mr Ghani and before him Mr Karzai were responsible for failure to build an effective Afghan military?

Interestingly, Gen. John W. Nicholson told the media this week that “Russia has overtly lent legitimacy to the Taliban…This public legitimacy that Russia lends to the Taliban is not based on fact, but it is used as a way to essentially undermine the Afghan government and the NATO effort … so it’s not helpful.”

He added: “Shifting to Iran, you have a similar situation. There have been linkages between the Iranians and the Taliban.”The sad truth is that Ashraf Ghani’s government is on the brink with its inability to develop coordination among different factions, massive corruption, infighting among various government factions besides other lingering issues.

As the protracted war continues in Afghanistan — or the country possibly moves near total collapse — it would be futile to blame Pakistan for Afghanistan’s misfortunes. The ugly bloodletting in Afghanistan is not going to stop by blaming its neighbours or availing photo opportunities with Modi.