Pakistan is the flavour of the region and season. Lectured, warned and spurned not many months ago, it has now suitors pouring in every week from around the world, making many quip jocularly that the protocol division is so hard pressed for time, it has to sleep at the airport. Pakistan is now the good boy of diplomacy. Listen to what US special envoy Richard Holbrooke was last heard saying: “In the last 13 months since this Obama administration took over, there has been a significant improvement across the board in our relationship with the government of Pakistan.”
Holbrooke’s remark underscores the profound truth—Pakistan is in the driver’s seat as the endgame in Afghanistan begins. The credit for this turnaround goes to army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, who scripted a successful military operation in Pakistan’s tribal belt, consequently manoeuvring himself into a position, says a western diplomat, from where he can “dictate to the West the dos and don’ts inside Afghanistan”.
This largely happened, says Pakistan Muslim League (Q) secretary general Mushahid Hussain, because Kiyani re-defined the army’s goals. As he told Outlook, “India has slipped down a few notches largely because of the army’s performance in 2009. Pervez Musharraf was playing a double game. He had become too cocky, and took the US for granted. When the Obama administration came in, Kiyani stayed clear of politics, and decided to take on terrorists. Nine months later, the US sees that Kiyani means business.”
For all this, Pakistan’s perception on Afghanistan had to be accommodated. Military sources say Musharraf was to blame for India’s salience in Afghanistan. He, to the surprise of the establishment, didn’t think that giving access to India in Afghanistan adversely affected Pakistan’s strategic interests. With the field wide open, India overreached itself. Defence analyst Gen Talat Masood told Outlook, “India tried to be over-ambitious and isolate Pakistan everywhere, including in Afghanistan. The US saw that this was disastrous.”
Mushahid also feels India committed a blunder in switching its support from President Hamid Karzai to his rival, Abdullah Abdullah, in the acrimonious presidential election last year, even reportedly financing him. Says he, “Pakistan’s stance was to do business with a ‘known devil’. Karzai, after all, is an Afghan (read Pashtun, Abdullah belongs to the minority Tajik community). No wonder, Karzai now comes to Pakistan.”
India’s many development projects in Afghanistan did initially enhance its popularity among western powers. But India’s interference in Balochistan, especially after 2006, prompted Pakistan to go on the offensive. It enabled the argument that it couldn’t concentrate on the war against terror because India was “breathing down its neck” in Balochistan and the tribal areas. That America had been belatedly convinced about Islamabad’s case was expressed through US commander in Afghanistan Gen Stanley McChrystal’s public declaration that Pakistan’s concerns on India had to be addressed.
This sentiment took on the contours of policy this year. Afghan specialist Ahmad Rashid told Outlook, “India was seriously rattled when the US and nato agreed at the January 28 London conference on Afghanistan to begin ‘re-integrating’ Taliban fighters and field commanders and lavishly funding a peace package for them. Karzai went further to ask for ‘reconciliation’ with Mullah Omar.” Obviously, India’s concerns about the Taliban weren’t taken into consideration. Former army chief Mirza Aslam Beg says, “Pakistan is already delivering brick by brick demolition of the jehadi infrastructure. The US has given an assurance of looking after Pakistan’s genuine interests.”
But Rashid feels the generals should not become too heady about their ‘triumphs’ in Afghanistan. As he says, “Any signs of excessive Pakistani influence in Afghanistan would immediately prompt a reaction from India, Iran, China and the Arab Gulf states. This could include backing anti-Pakistan proxies, thus making it even more difficult for Afghanistan to achieve peace and stability.”
