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The shadow over Pakistan,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]
The Soviet pullout from Afghanistan in 1989 was a triumph for our military establishment. The ISI and the Zia regime,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], while not solely responsible for that outcome,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], had helped bring it about. Afghanistan then was a country contained within its borders. Afghanistan now,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], to our misfortune,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], is stretched across the Durand Line. Ask yourself two simple questions: (1) Are the Taliban based in Fata more loyal to Mullah Omar or to the state of Pakistan? (2) Is North Waziristan,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], in real terms,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], more a part of Pakistan or Afghanistan?
When the American pullout is complete these facts will become starker,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]. Does anyone in his right mind think that in a year from now Amir Hakeemullah Mehsud - amir of the semi-independent Islamic Emirate of North Waziristan - will come down from the mountains and lay down his arms before the army command in Rawalpindi?
The Afghan 'mujahideen' in 1989 exulted over the circumstance that they had defeated one superpower. Now they can lay claim to a far bigger triumph. Forget about the Afghan Taliban. Does any fool think that when the Americans have drunk fully from their cup of humiliation, the Pakistani Taliban will be in a more penitent mood, ready to settle for modest or moderate terms with the hapless representatives of the Pakistani state? What world of fantasy and make-believe are we living in?
We can fit that old proverb to our circumstances: with friends like the United States who needs enemies? The Americans made life difficult for us by coming to Afghanistan in 2011. They will make life more difficult for us by leaving the job they came to do not just half-done but utterly undone. The Taliban before were just an Afghan phenomenon, a curiosity to be observed from afar. Thanks to our American friends they are now just as much a Pakistani phenomenon.
And we will have to deal with this phenomenon not in the remote future but in a year's time. When President Obama first said that American troops would be out by 2014,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], it seemed such a distant date. Now it's upon us and,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], far from being prepared, we are seeing to it that we bury our heads deeper into the sand,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], with sundry paladins saying we must talk peace with the Taliban without being at all clear what this would entail.
Forget for a moment the modalities of peace talks,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], whether in the mountains or Doha or wherever. If capable of this clarity,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], they should not waste a minute. If not, then perhaps it would be best not to brandish olive branches which can only encourage the Taliban and confuse our own forces risking their lives in the killing fields of Fata.
There has been no greater apologist for the Taliban than Imran Khan. Yet when he wanted to march to North Waziristan the Taliban would not allow him. Maulana Fazlur Rehman is a self-appointed mediator for talks with the Taliban. Yet the Taliban,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], in so many words,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], have made it clear they want to have nothing to do with him.
Do we take the Taliban to be a bunch of kids? They have been fighting the Pakistan army and air force for the last so many years. Having held out for so long will they settle for any kind of lollipops when,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], across the Hindukush mountains, vindication is so close at hand for their brethren under Mullah Omar from whom they derive their inspiration? And from whom besides inspiration they will derive more physical strength once the Americans are out of Afghanistan.
Are we in a position to dictate terms or negotiate from a position of strength? Quite apart from the balance of military forces,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], is there any internal cohesion on our side? If there are elements in Pakistani society hostile to the Taliban,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], there is no shortage of elements sympathetic to them. The Taliban suffer from no such confusion. We need no videos from the Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], to tell us that they are united in their aim: the recasting of the Pakistani state along lines prescribed by their own version of Islam.
What Swat was under Mullah Fazlullah,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], what North Waziristan is under Hakeemullah Mehsud,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], what the Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan will be under Mullah Omar, is what they would like the whole of Pakistan to be. And don't forget that their support network in the form of friendly seminaries and friendly religious parties is now spread across Pakistan.
The MQM may have its own sins to answer for but it is not crying wolf when it says that spreading areas of Karachi are now Taliban-dominated,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], with their own jirgas to settle local disputes. Indeed,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the Taliban are stepping into the shoes of the Awami National Party. And the MQM while not without its own power will,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], in times to come,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], be no match for these veterans of multiple jihads.
So the dynamics of the national situation are changing and we remain blissfully unaware. This is strategic depth in reverse; not Afghanistan our depth but Pakistan with its religious parties and Taliban sympathisers becoming, oh scary thought,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], an extension of Afghanistan. Does this sound too apocalyptic? But then could anyone have imagined in 2001 that in a few years' time North Waziristan would become a no-go area where our military boots would fear to tread? Or that the spectre of Vietnam would come to haunt Afghanistan?
Afghanistan is only living up to its reputation of being the graveyard of empires,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]. But who told us to play with fire there? Now it's just not our fingers that are being burnt but much more.
Come to think of it, through our folly we are reversing 200 years of history. Once upon a time most of the territories now comprising Pakistan were part of the kingdom of Kabul. Then on these territories Maharajah Ranjit Singh established his kingdom and,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], as a measure of his power,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], wrested Peshawar from Afghan hands. With the Maharajah's death his kingdom fell on evil days and it was not long before it was defeated and then annexed by the British.
Of this tangled skein we are the luckless inheritors, successors of course to the British but,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], at a remove, successors also to the kingdom of Maharajah Ranjit Singh. His was a secular kingdom but let's not get into that minefield here. More to the point,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], he kept the Afghans at a distance. We have been less successful than him in our Afghan policy. Our military commanders talk strangely of training Afghan troops. Our own house in disorder, we have the hubris to offer free advice to others.
And as the Americans prepare to leave,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], forget all the hogwash about their continued interest in our affairs. A skeletal relationship will of course survive but we will be largely on our own,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], with the rupee in free-fall and the Taliban on the march,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], in spirit if not otherwise. This about sums up our predicament.
That is why 2013 is so crucial for us,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], for the governing arrangement that emerges from the coming elections will be the stewards of our discontent when the Americans are out and the Taliban are dreaming of duplicating in Pakistan their victory that side of the Durand Line.
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