Dealing with Ghani and Modi

Amidst Imran Khan defending Gandapur as a virtuous man, the Sharifs beaming in the buses, and the PPP’s focus on Ayaan Ali’s future, it might sound a little incongruous to debate Pakistan’s strategic picture. But then some things can’t wait. The fact is that the situation on and across our borders has become quite murky. The traditional two-front threat scenario, while familiar, has started to re-emerge with greater complexity. Events of the last two weeks are unmistakable pointers in the direction; only the sightless can miss them.
Recall what Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan’s suave president, who for a whole host of reasons is such a delightful improvement on the baleful Hamid Karzai, had to say about the causes of growing violence in his land. In his much-quoted interview with the Wall Street Journal last week, he unequivocally demanded Islamabad to do more to contain the Quetta Shura and contain Taliban groups, the Haqqani Network, allegedly operating from Peshawar. The essence of his re-emphasis on Kabul’s old demand-list from Pakistan was a far cry from the positivity in language and actions that he has consistently shown ever since he took over power last year.
If he were someone who was given to sending contradictory signals for short-term gains, his complaint could have been ignored. Similarly if Pakistan were not in the middle of what is being projected as the biggest and the most significant operation of the past decade (even though the number of troops deployed and the size of the operation area say otherwise) – Operation Zarb-e-Azb – President Ghani’s outbursts could be considered a way to put pressure on Islamabad to undertake efforts to stem the tide of the Taliban’s deadly spring offensive. Neither is the case.
President Ghani, on whom Pakistan’s establishment has placed big bets, and who has received more military brass and political emissaries from Islamabad than anyone else in his position could have ever imagined, is a smart man who understands that Pakistan is not sitting idle doing nothing. He could not have missed North Waziristan’s Operation’s intricate details, nor would he have failed to notice some of its blowback being felt across the length and breadth of Pakistan. For him to still lose patience and talk in the tone of frenemies is worrisome.
Some analysts attribute this coldness to President Ghani’s internal issues: he has to ward off Kabul’s known Pakistan-haters who have been peppering him with accusations of being too soft on Islamabad. Others think he is badly affected by the Taliban’s attacks that have acquired a new potency and, feeling helpless, is taking it out on the familiar punching bag that Pakistan has always been for governments in Kabul. Yet others think that there might be more sinister designs in his mind, of the sort that bedazzled his predecessor about ganging up against Pakistan with bigger players like India.
Whatever the case, Pakistan needs to make a special outreach plan to defuse the tension that is building up on the Afghan front. This does not just mean having more meetings only but in more concrete terms speeding up the closure of Operation Zarb-e-Azb and other smaller yet vital military expeditions in Fata. We have to admit that the North Waziristan campaign has become extended and perplexingly long. True, no battle plan survives the first bullet fired but considering that we had done such deep planning and years’ long assessment of the task in the last bastion of the Taliban, we should have been able to bring the operation to a close by now. Just a reminder: it has been exactly a year since the operation began.
We now need to get on with it rather than simply repeat statements about the significance of the exercise for the country’s future and how much ‘space’ it has created for us. These are tired phrases that don’t do the trick. And this we should do not to please President Ghani, or anyone else, for that matter, but to be in a more confident position to tell our neighbours about all of our territory being completely in our command and all groups being totally destroyed.
More important, we can only focus on tying up the loose ends of Taliban-related matters once we have pulled ourselves out of this state of perpetual fight. The post-operation environment should technically give us a decisive edge to put more pressure on the remains of the Afghan Taliban. This should allow us more leeway to address some of the concerns that have been expressed by President Ghani either by proving that his apprehensions are misplaced or by acknowledging that he might have point in making the point that he has made. We need ease and comfort on our western flank. This won’t come if President Ghani is grinding his teeth and is getting his claws out.
The second front that is heating up is India. Here a chauvinistic government is pushing itself to absurd limits to prove how chauvinistic it can be towards its favourite enemy. The counter-terror-through-terror statement is as lamentable as it is shorn of depth and even practical wisdom. Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar is lucky to be part of the Narendra Modi setup. A more normal boss would have thrown him out sooner than he could have uttered ‘oh!’ No less stupid is external affairs minister Shusma Sawaraj breaking news about the Indian prime minister sharing his objections to the CPEC passing through Kashmir – as if the Chinese are going to change their plans now that the Indian objection is out in the open!
But bizarre and sad as such announcements might be, these are a good measure of the mindset that rules Delhi: it would do anything and everything in its power to stymie Islamabad.
How we tackle this new-old front getting out of control – at least in its jarring articulation of a threatening agenda – is something of a challenge. At present two types of responses are in play from Pakistan towards India’s oral belligerence. One is a turned-up volume of the refrain that RAW is sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan, which it could well be. The other is a parallel suggestion that Pakistan still wants to engage with India. Besides being contradictory, both responses are limited in impact.
The crescendo of India’s proxy war in Pakistan will only become significant when we are able to adduce evidence to prove it. There is no point puffing our chests every time an inanity is hurled at us from across the border and then state for days that ‘we are capable of defeating enemy designs’. That only shows us to be hyper-sensitive to the Modi government’s word play. Similarly, the suggestion that Pakistan can still do business with India is also senseless. We don’t have to prove our reasonableness when Delhi is breathing fire. This suggests that we are in queue for peace while our counterpart is thinking of cutting us to pieces at every turn of diplomatic engagement.
A better response is to tell India to take a hike, freeze all so-called initiatives to break the ice and respond to Delhi’s shenanigans in real terms rather than getting into bouts of frenzied outcries. India under Modi is persistently negative when it comes to dealing with Pakistan – and this not going to change. We might as well accept it and plan our future strategy accordingly.
Holding our line, not getting provoked and working hard to defeat Delhi’s devilish deeds, especially if there is evidence to back our apprehensions is the way to go. A warmer handshake with President Ghani and a two-finger gesture to premier Modi is a combination that can get us through this troubling patch.
The writer is former executive editor of The News and a senior journalist with Geo TV.
Email: syedtalathussain@gmail.com
Twitter: @TalatHussain12