Pakistan Ledger

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 25th, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

The aggressive US posture in Pakistan, and the bomb demolishing the Marriott Hotel is Islamabad was the last hurrah of a dieing regime in Kabul. RAW agents and Karzi apparatus can do only so much damage. CIA operatives can do only so much.

Indian policy makers have come to a rude awakening. The earth has shifted underneath them. We have been reporting the imminent demise of the Karzai farce for weeks and months. The inevitable is happening. After spending one Billion Dollars in Afghanistan the Indians have nothing to show for it except the blood of innocent people in hospitals in Peshawar and hoteliers in Islamabad.

India with dreams of super power status is the biggest loser in this peace deal. The 107 consulates should be packing their bags. One cannot imagine any circumstance where the current level of Indian influence has any staying power in Afghanistan. The 10,000 Indian soldiers ostensibly there to protect their construction workers will have to go back where they came from. The construction work will be slowed down and wound up. The Indian presence follow the same residence that allowed Lord Curzon to pursue a policy of On to the Oxus, but had to retreat after the defeats at Maiwand etc. The Indian delegation had to pack up its bags and leave Kabul after the Soviets left Afghanistan. A similar fate awaits India.

For the bulk of the Indian strategic community, the unthinkable is happening – the prospect of an Afghan settlement involving the Taliban is increasing. From all accounts, the Taliban appear edging closer to the Afghan capital and tightening their control in the provinces ringing Kabul.

Indian policymakers, who have been bogged down in the labyrinthine passage of the Indo-US nuclear deal, need to take note that the ground is dramatically shifting. Regional security is set to transform. Several factors call for reckoning. First, there is cause to worry about Washington’s attention span in the period ahead to press ahead with the Afghan war.

…The Taliban today operate in virtually every Afghan province. They have the capacity to mount sustained offensives. It has created a parallel government structure. Pamela Constable, correspondent of The Washington Post and old hand on the South Asia beat, wrote recently: “In many districts a short drive from the capital, some of them considered safe even six months ago, residents and officials said the Taliban now control roads and villages, patrolling in trucks and recruiting new fighters.”

Tariq Ali didn’t mention Maulana Fazlur Rahman, but New Delhi knows how farcical it would be to remain in the grip of paroxysms of nervousness about the redoubtable Islamist leader. India’s apprehensions withered away once the Maulana, variously described as the “Father of the Taliban”, began visiting India. Equally, India needs to do some “out-of-the-box” thinking about the Taliban Indian Ambassador Bhadrakumar Asia Times

Pakistan will have to tread carefully. An overly aggressive policy in Afghanistan will rankle many of the powers to be. Slowly but surely, the Durand Line has to be erased, and the inevitable union between Afghanistan Pakistan will emerge.

The basic implication is that most of the NATO and ISAF forces will withdraw from Afghanistan. When the Soviets withdrew it took the Afghans a decade to purge Afghanistan of the remnants of a decade long Soviet Occupation. It may take the Afghans a bit longer. Mr. Karzai surely will either be hanging from the nearest tree or enjoying life on one of the islands that he has purchased for himself.

“Whenever the wind stops howling over the mountains of Tora Bora, a deep, rich chuckle can presumably be heard echoing down the valleys. If he is still alive, nobody will be enjoying the plight of America more than Osama bin Laden. The anarchic carnage in the American financial and political system brings in sight a humiliating withdrawal and defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq. It even raises the possibility of the final collapse of the evil empire which Osama forecast.” British columnist Neil Lyndon