Afghanistan: Pakistan's Friend or Foe?

[Riaz Haq]

The open hostility of successive Afghan governments toward Pakistan begs the following questions: Why do Afghan leaders scapegoat Pakistan for their own failures?  Is Afghanistan a friend or an enemy of Pakistan? 

Scapegoating Pakistan:

Carter Malkasian, former advisor to US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dunford, has recently talked about how Afghan governments have scapegoated Pakistan for their failures. He said: "Let’s take Pakistan, for example. Pakistan is a powerful factor here. But on the battlefield, if 200 Afghan police and army are confronted with 50 Taliban or less than that, and those government forces retreat, that doesn’t have a lot to do with Pakistan. That has to do with something else". 

In another discussion,  Malkasian explained the rapid advance of the Taliban and the imminent collapse of the Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani. Here's what he said:

"Over time, aware of the government’s vulnerable position, Afghan leaders turned to an outside source to galvanize the population: Pakistan. Razziq, President Hamid Karzai and later President Ashraf Ghani used Pakistan as an outside threat to unite Afghans behind them. They refused to characterize the Taliban as anything but a creation of Islamabad. Razziq relentlessly claimed to be fighting a foreign Pakistani invasion. Yet Pakistan could never fully out-inspire occupation". 

Afghanistan has been governed by secular Pashtun Nationalists and their Tajik and Uzbek allies for much of the 20th century. These Afghan rulers and their secular Pashtun allies on the eastern side of the border have been hostile toward Pakistan since 1947 when it became independent. Afghanistan's was the lone vote against the admission of the newly independent state of Pakistan to the United Nations. Since then, the anti-Pakistan campaign by Pashtun Nationalists on both sides of the Durand Line has received support from New Delhi.

India's Partition:

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, also known as the Frontier Gandhi, led the secular Pashtun Nationalists' opposition to the creation of Pakistan before 1947. Their efforts  to stay with India failed when they lost a referendum and the majority of the voters of then Frontier Province chose to join Pakistan.

After the humiliating loss in the referendum, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, his son Abdul Wali Khan and their supporters decided to seek an independent nation of Pakhtoonistan.  When Ghaffar Khan died, he was not buried in Pakistan. Instead, he was buried in the Afghan city of Jalalabad according to his will. His son Wali Khan then carried the movement forward.

Pakhtoonistan Movement:

After the creation of Pakistan, Ghaffar Khan and Wali Khan launched Pakhtoonistan movement that sought to create an independent state of Pakhtoonistan with the eventual goal of erasing the Durand Line to unify it with Afghanistan. Slogans such as  "Lar o Bar Yaw Afghan" (Afghans are one on both sides of the Durand Line)  and "Loya Afghanistan" (Grand Afghanistan) signify the aims of this movement. 

The central government in Pakistan has responded by assimilating Pakhtoons in civil and military services from the early 1950’s. By the end of 1960’s, the Pakhtoons were holding many top positions in the civil and military bureaucracy. At the time Pakistan was ruled by Ayub Khan, himself a non-Pashtu speaking Pakhtoon. Pakistan's current Prime Minister Mr. Imran Khan is also a Pashtun. 

Both the Afghan and the Indian governments continued to back the Pakhtoonistan movement in the1960s and 70s.

In 1960, then Afghan Prime Minister Daoud Khan sent his troops across the Durand Line into the Bajaur Agency of Pakistan to press the Pashtunistan issue, but the Afghan forces were routed by Pakistani Tribals. During this period, the propaganda war from Afghanistan, carried on by radio, was relentless.

Daoud hosted Pakistani Pakhtoon Khan Abdul Wali Khan, Ajmal Khattak, Juma Khan Sufi. Daoud started training Pakhtun Zalmay and young Balochs and sent them across the border into Pakistan to start a militancy.

In 1961, Pakistan retaliated against Daoud's support to militias in areas along the Durand Line by closing its borders with Afghanistan, causing an economic crisis in Afghanistan.

On July 7, 1973, Daoud Khan toppled his cousin King Zahir Shah in a coup. This triggered a series of bloody coups ending in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 

A former RAW officer RK Yadav has, in his book "Mission RAW", confirmed that Indian intelligence officers met Khan Wali Abdul Wali Khan in Europe on several occasions to provide support and funding for the Pakhtoonistan movement.

In 1975, then Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto ordered Pakistan's intelligence agency to respond to Afghan provocations. Pakistan ISI trained Jalaluddin Haqqani, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as their Afghan proxies.

Soviet Invasion:

The Soviet troops rolled into Afghanistan in December, 1979 to assert control after several coups and counter-coups in the country. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States responded to it by recruiting, training and arming a resistance force referred to as "Mujahideen". India supported the Soviet invasion and occupation in a United Nations vote in January, 1980.

 Soviet troops were defeated and forced by the Mujahideen to withdraw after 9 years of occupation. The Americans also decided to leave the region with Afghanistan in complete chaos as various Mujahideen factions split along ethnic lines fought for control of Kabul.

Pakistan was the most affected as a result of the Afghan war and instability. Millions of Afghan refugees poured across the border in Pakistan. Many were radicalized, trained and armed to fight. The "Kalashnikov Culture" spread across Pakistan causing instability.

The Taliban:

In the1990s, Pakistan supported the Taliban led by Mullah Omar to try to stabilize the situation. The Taliban defeated all other factions and warlords and took control of most of Afghanistan. The only part of Afghanistan that remained beyond their control was the Panjshir valley in northern Afghanistan that was controlled by Tajik warlord Ahmad Shah Massoud.

The Taliban hosted Al Qaeda and its leader Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. The United States accused Al Qaeda of carrying out the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001.  When the Taliban refused to hand over Bin Laden to Washington, President George W. Bush ordered the US military to invade Afghanistan to force the Taliban out of power.

US Invasion:

The US invasion of Afghanistan forced the Taliban out of power and drove them and Al Qaeda fighters across the border into Pakistan. Pakistani military arrested most of the Al Qaeda leadership and many of the Al Qaeda fighters and handed them over to the United States. Bin Laden was found and killed by the Americans in a raid in Abbotabad, Pakistan in 2011.

Indian intelligence agency RAW has established its presence in Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan since the US invasion and the installation of a Kabul government that includes pro-India members of the Tajik dominated Northern Alliance.

India's Covert War Against Pakistan:

Fomer US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said back in 2011 that "India has always used Afghanistan as a second front against Pakistan.  India has over the years been financing problems in Pakistan". Secretary Hagel was speaking at Cameron University in Oklahoma. Direct and circumstantial evidence of India using Afghanistan to attack Pakistan has grown to the point that even Indian analysts and media are beginning to acknowledge it:

1. Bharat Karnad, a professor of national security studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, recently acknowledged India's use of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorist group against Pakistan in an Op Ed he wrote for Hindustan Times.

2. Indian journalist Praveen Swami said in a piece published in "Frontline": "Since 2013, India has secretly built up a covert action program against Pakistan."

3. India's former RAW officers, including one ex chief, have blamed Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, arrested by Pakistan in 2016, for getting caught in Pakistan as a "result of unprofessionalism", according to a report in India's "The Quint" owned and operated by a joint venture of Bloomberg News and Quintillion Media. The report that appeared briefly on The Quint website has since been removed, apparently under pressure from the Indian government.

4. A story by Indian journalist Karan Thapar pointed out several flaws in the Indian narrative claiming that Kulbhushan Jadhav, arrested in Pakistan while engaging in India's covert war in Balochistan, was an innocent Indian businessman kidnapped from Chabahar by Pakistani agents. Writing for the Indian Express, Thapar debunked the entire official story from New Delhi.

ISI Bogeyman:

British Afghan war veteran Major Robert Gallimore says he saw no presence of Pakistan's intelligence service ISI in Afghanistan. The Afghan Army saw the " imagined nefarious hand" and "bogeyman" of Pakistan everywhere but he never saw it. He "saw not one piece of evidence" of it. It was all in their minds.

During his three tours of duty in Afghanistan, he could hear all the radio conversations going on but never heard any Pakistani accent. He did, however, see "buckets and buckets of money" and rising Indian influence in Afghan Army that blamed Pakistan for all their problems. Pakistan is their bogeyman.

The Afghan Army says they'll feel good when they can "invade Pakistan". They do not blame the British but the Pakistanis for the Durand Line that they do not recognize.

Major Gallimore sees the emergence of an India-Pakistan 21st century "Great Game" similar to its British-Russian predecessor. Many Afghans support creation of Pashtunistan by annexing northern part of Pakistan into Afghanistan. They blame Pakistan for the Durand Line, not the British or their own leaders who agreed to it. As a result, Maj Gallimore warns that Afghanistan has become much more volatile and dangerous than ever before.

Summary:

Recent scapegoating of Pakistan by the Ashraf Ghani government in Kabul has been criticized by Carter Malkasian, former advisor of US General Dunford.  Malkasian has said, "...on the battlefield, if 200 Afghan police and army are confronted with 50 Taliban or less than that, and those government forces retreat, that doesn’t have a lot to do with Pakistan. That has to do with something else".  The animosity of secular Pashtun Nationalists and their Tajik and Uzbek allies against Pakistan is not new. It didn't start with Pakistan's support of the Taliban in the 1990s. Their hostility against Pakistan dates back to the creation of Pakistan.  Afghanistan's was the lone vote against the admission of the newly independent state of Pakistan to the United Nations in 1947. Since then, the anti-Pakistan campaign by Pashtun Nationalists on both sides of the Durand Line has received support from New Delhi. A former RAW officer RK Yadav has, in his book "Mission RAW", confirmed that Indian intelligence officers met Khan Wali Abdul Wali Khan in Europe on several occasions to provide support and funding for the Pakhtoonistan movement.

Here is a video discussion of spillover of Afghan instability into Pakistan:

https://youtu.be/EZuCLz6KzKE

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EZuCLz6KzKE"; title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>" height="315" src="https://img1.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" width="560" style="cursor: move; background-color: #b2b2b2;" />>

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Trump's Afghan Strategy: Will Pakistan Yield to US Pressure?

Why is India Sponsoring Terror in Pakistan?

Karan Thapar Debunks Indian Narrative of Kulbhushan Yadav

Coll's Directorate Demonizes Pakistan ISI

Gen Petraeus Debunks Charges of Pakistani Duplicity

Husain Haqqani vs Riaz Haq on India vs Pakistan

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Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

[Riaz Haq]

Regional powers #Russia, #China, #Iran, #Pakistan Extend Hands to #Taliban Now in Control of #Afghanistan. All 4 neighbors continue to maintain embassies in #Kabul

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-china-iran-pakistan-extend-hands-ta...


s the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan shakes the international community's commitment to the country, regional powers Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan continue to maintain their embassies in Kabul while expressing their willingness to work with its new leaders.

Just as the Taliban was getting settled in the capital, Russian ambassador to Afghanistan Dmitry Zhirnov met with the group on Tuesday to discuss embassy security. Following his talks, he spoke highly of a group he said was conducting itself "in a responsible and civilized manner" since its largely peaceful capture of Kabul.

"They want to be sure there will be no provocations, to avoid shooting," Zhirnov said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 outlet. "Because practically everyone possesses weapons, even teenagers. It looks like they are afraid that should anything happen not through their fault it may cast a shadow on them as masters of the situation. They don't conceal it."


Speaking in Kaliningrad, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also saw "a positive signal" from the Taliban, specifically in the infamously hardline group's public commitments to respecting the views of others.


"We are convinced and have known that for quite a long time that only, as they say now, an inclusive dialogue involving all key forces can serve as a step towards normalization of the situation in Afghanistan," Lavrov said, according to the state-run Tass Russian News Agency.

Russia's turn toward accepting the Taliban's legitimacy comes after its own difficult history in Afghanistan. In 1979, the Soviet Union entered into a decade-long war in hopes of saving a Kabul-based communist administration from a mujahideen resistance that was backed the U.S. and regional powers including Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. It was forced to withdraw in defeat a decade later, paving the way for the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s.

The group took control of most of the country and effectively held Afghanistan until 2001, when the 9/11 attacks conducted by Taliban ally Al-Qaeda drew a massive U.S.-led intervention. Moscow initially supported the Western effort in Afghanistan, but came to criticize its handling over the course of two decades.

With the Taliban now back in control of Kabul, Lavrov told reporters that Moscow was "not rushing a recognition" of an Afghan government led by the a group that Russia still considers a terrorist organization. The decision mirrors the hesitation of other nations including Russia's strategic partner, China, which borders Afghanistan directly.

"Just yesterday I spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi," Lavrov added. "Our positions are in line."

Beijing is seeking to portray an open mind as the new dynamic unfolds.

"China has all along maintained contact and communication with the Afghan Taliban on the basis of fully respecting Afghanistan's sovereignty and the will of all factions in the country, and played a constructive role in promoting the political settlement of the Afghan issue," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters on Tuesday.

There was an important caveat, however.

[Riaz Haq]

#Taliban says no one will use #Afghan territory to launch attacks against anybody or any country. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid asserted that #WomensRights will be protected within Islamic law. #China #Pakistan #Iran #Russia #US https://aje.io/f95z8w via @AJEnglish

The Taliban held its first official news conference in Kabul since the shock seizure of the city, declaring on Tuesday it wished for peaceful relations with other countries.

“We don’t want any internal or external enemies,” the movement’s main spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, said.

The spokesman asserted that the rights of women will be protected within the framework of Islam.

The group previously declared an “amnesty” across Afghanistan and urged women to join its government, trying to calm nerves across a tense capital city that only the day before saw chaos as thousands mobbed the city’s international airport in a desperate attempt to flee.

Evacuation flights from Afghanistan resumed as a Western security official told the Reuters news agency on Tuesday that the Kabul airport’s tarmac and runway – which troops from the United States control – were now clear of crowds.

The official said military flights evacuating diplomats and civilians from Afghanistan have started taking off.

At least seven people died in Monday’s chaos, including several people who clung to the sides of a jet as it took off.

The Taliban has meanwhile declared the war in Afghanistan over and a senior leader said the group would wait until foreign forces had left before creating a new governance structure.

China said it was ready for “friendly relations” with the Taliban, while Russia and Iran also made diplomatic overtures.

[Riaz Haq]

#Afghan #Taliban visit #Hazara Neighborhood in #Kabul, Attend #Shia Majlis

https://twitter.com/haqsmusings/status/1427803350154715140?s=20

[Riaz Haq]

#Biden administration freezes ($9.4 billion) #Afghan reserves, depriving #Taliban of cash. “Any Central Bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban". #Afghanistan #economy https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/08/17/treasury-taliba...

The Biden administration on Sunday froze Afghan government reserves held in U.S. bank accounts, blocking the Taliban from accessing billions of dollars held in U.S. institutions, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The decision was made by Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen and officials in the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the people said. The State Department was also involved in discussions over the weekend, with officials in the White House monitoring the developments. An administration official said in a statement, “Any Central Bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban.” The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss government policy not yet made public.

Cutting off access to U.S.-based reserves represents among the first in what are expected to be several crucial decisions facing the Biden administration about the economic fate of that nation following the Taliban takeover. Afghanistan is already one of the poorest countries in the world and is highly dependent on American aid that is now in jeopardy. The Biden administration is also likely to face hard choices over how to manage existing sanctions on the Taliban, which may make it difficult to deliver international humanitarian assistance to a population facing ruin, experts say.

Asked Tuesday what leverage the United States would have over the Taliban going forward, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that “there are obviously issues related to sanctions” but declined to elaborate. He also said the administration would first communicate directly with the Taliban.

President Biden in his speech Monday appeared to commit to continuing to give aid to Afghanistan, saying: “We will continue to support the Afghan people. We will lead with our diplomacy, our international influence and our humanitarian aid.”

The Afghanistan central bank held $9.4 billion in reserve assets as of April, according to the International Monetary Fund. That amounts to roughly one-third of the country’s annual economic output. The vast majority of those reserves are not currently held in Afghanistan, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Among those, billions of dollars are kept in the United States, although the precise amount is unclear.

Spokespeople for the White House and Treasury Department declined to comment on the process for blocking the funds or the fate of U.S. economic assistance to Afghanistan. A spokeswoman for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where much of the money is presumed to be held, also declined to comment.

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan has expanded its #economy at 4% CAGR & multiplied its #exports 10X in last 20 years. It's a global player in apparel/textiles, & lately exported its first #smartphones. #Taliban win next door could be a godsend or a nightmare
https://www.barrons.com/articles/pakistan-spent-decades-expanding-i... via @BarronsOnline

The Taliban’s triumph is also a nightmare of sorts, making Pakistan an easy scapegoat for global outrage at the repression its fundamentalist clients are expected to impose. “Pakistan is very vulnerable to sanctions,” Nooruddin says. “All the capital they need to develop could get frozen pretty quickly.”

A key barometer to watch will be the Financial Action Task Force, the global anti-money laundering body. FATF put Pakistan on its “grey list” in 2018, finding “serious deficiencies” in the country’s monitoring regime. The Global X MSCI Pakistan exchange-traded fund (ticker: PAK) has lost half its value since then. Post-mortem scrutiny into Islamabad’s Taliban financing may quash chances of removing this blight. It could also affect further tranches of a $6 billion aid package Pakistan signed two years ago with the International Monetary Fund.

Imram Khan, the Oxford-educated prime minister who came to power two months after Pakistan’s grey listing, has underwhelmed as a reformist outsider. “There hasn’t been a huge amount of change,” says Alison Graham, chief investment officer for frontier-markets specialist Voltan Capital Management. “Khan seems to be cut from the same cloth as the surrounding political environment.”

She is still eyeing Pakistani investments on valuation grounds. “The trajectory of the market has been straight down for reasons I don’t quite understand,” she says. “Pakistan’s million political problems don’t affect its economic situation that much.”

Maurits Pot, chief investment officer at Dawn Global, chose Pakistan as one of five countries in his recently launched Asian Growth Cubs ETF (CUBS). Companies that leverage the nation’s youth and education levels, like software provider Systems (SYS.Pakistan), will prosper whatever geopolitics may bring, he argues. “It’s a very vibrant but cheap capital market,” he says.

Western ostracism of Pakistan should reach a limit, too. China, which has marked a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as one of the flagship projects in its One Belt One Road master plan, will be happy to take up slack as the West retreats. More importantly, Islamic revolution returning to underdeveloped Afghanistan may be a tragedy; Islamic revolution spreading to 225 million-strong, nuclear armed Pakistan would be a catastrophe. “The last thing the U.S. wants is two failed states next to each other,” Pot observes.

Pakistan had little choice but to become embroiled in Afghan politics, the Atlantic Council’s Nooruddin says. It is home to 25 million Pashtuns, the ethnic group that dominates the Taliban (and the just-ousted Afghan government), and needs to handle their loyalties delicately. “The Taliban have been a hassle for Pakistan to manage, and they’ve handled it reasonably well,” Graham adds.

That subtlety will quickly be lost, though, as the Taliban consolidates their reconquest of their homeland with cameras rolling. Pakistan won’t have much time to celebrate its good luck.

[Riaz Haq]

What Pakistan Gains From the Taliban Takeover of Afghanistan | Time

By Anatol Lieven

https://time.com/6091251/afghanistan-taliban-takeover-pakistan/

We need to recognize that the single most important factor in Taliban victory was their own commitment, courage and sheer grit. Nevertheless without Pakistan’s shelter and support they might not be marching through the streets of Kabul right now. How grateful they will be remains to be seen. But Pakistan wasn’t doing it for them. Pakistan’s strategy of helping the Taliban stemmed from long fears concerning Afghanistan, some of which have existed since Pakistan became a state in 1947.

These fears were of Afghan alliance with India and Afghan support for rebellion inside Pakistan, and have therefore been considerably reduced by the Taliban victory. India is bitterly hostile to the Taliban and very unlikely to be able to ally with them; and if the Taliban support Islamist rebellion against Pakistan, they will cut off Afghanistan’s trade routes to the sea; quite apart from the fact that the Pakistan Army has demonstrated in recent years (after some delay) that it can successfully crush any rebellion. The strong Pakistani alliance with a China that is vastly richer than it was 20 years ago also gives Pakistan the hope that Chinese investment in Afghanistan may help to keep the Taliban government aligned with Pakistani interests. Pakistan can therefore afford to be quite confident about the positive consequences of the Taliban’s victory.

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Afghanistan, a state founded by Pashtuns in the mid-18th century, has never accepted this border. When the British Raj ended in 1947, the Afghan government initially refused to recognize Pakistani independence unless Pakistan tore up the Durand Line and handed its Pashtun territories to Afghanistan. This not surprisingly Pakistan refused to do.

As a result, a succession of Afghan governments continued to refuse to recognize the Durand Line as a legal frontier, aligned Afghanistan with India against Pakistan, and periodically attempted to stir up Pashtun ethnic separatism in Pakistan. In response, for almost 70 years Pakistan tried either to influence or to weaken Afghanistan through a combination of economic pressure and inducements with support for rebellions within Afghanistan.

This strategy was a key motivation for Pakistani shelter for the Afghan Taliban, just as in the 1980s (in alliance with the U.S.) it partly motivated Pakistani support for the Afghan mujahedin against the Afghan communist state and its Soviet backers. Interestingly though, despite this Pakistani support and shelter, Afghan nationalism has meant that both the Afghan mujahedin leadership and the Afghan Taliban refused categorically to recognize the Durand Line.
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With the Taliban victory, Pakistani fear of Afghan alignment with India has vanished for the moment, as India has always been bitterly opposed to the Taliban, due to their support for the Islamist revolt in Kashmir. Since the 1980s, however, another combination of Pakistani fears emerged concerning Afghanistan: that of Afghan refugees causing destabilization among Pakistan’s Pashtuns.

During the Afghan war of the 1980s, some three million mostly Pashtun refugees fled into Pakistan. These refugee camps became fertile recruitment grounds first for the mujahedin, and then for the Taliban. The refugees to a considerable extent merged with the Pashtuns of Pakistan, and the Afghan jihad after 1979 and 2001 received passionate support from many Pakistani Pashtuns, especially in the tribes that straddled the border with Afghanistan.

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Pakistan hopes therefore that a regional coalition of itself, China, Russia and Iran (if the Taliban keep their promises to Tehran to respect Shia rights in Afghanistan) will support the Taliban against ISIS, ensure that the Taliban themselves do not back international extremism, including an Islamist revolt in Pakistan, and refrain from backing Tajik, Uzbek and other ethnic forces against the Taliban state.

[Riaz Haq]

With #Taliban Dominance, #India's #Chabahar Port Could Become a Dead Investment. #Americans have partnered with #Uzbekistan, #Afghanistan and #Pakistan to make a new north-south connectivity corridor bypassing #Iran. #CPEC #Gwadar https://thewire.in/external-affairs/with-taliban-takeover-indias-ch... via @thewire_in

The spectre of the collapse of the Ashraf Ghani government of Afghanistan and the takeover by the anarchic, ragtag group of Taliban, even while the US has left the country to its miserable fate, is increasingly driving a nail in many bilateral and multilateral arrangements between Kabul and the world.

Undoubtedly, the most hurt would be India and its much vaunted project of the Chabahar Port in Iran’s east, which was meant to allow New Delhi an opportunity to side-step Pakistan and take the land route to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Now Chabahar, from Iran and India’s perspective, seems like a dead investment — a dream gone sour.

“Indians just took too much time to complete the project. Now, changed circumstances and alternative connectivity routes are being conjured up by other countries to make Chabahar irrelevant,” claims an Iranian source.

He may be right.

Much of the blame for the slow pace at which the Chabahar project progressed should rest on India and its over-cautious attitude. The current government in Delhi did not want to do anything to antagonise the US government after it had imposed sanctions on Iran.

Now, the Americans have partnered with Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan to make a new connectivity corridor.

So where does it leave India?

Ironically, India’s Chabahar engagement, though old, gained momentum after former US president Barack Obama ended sanctions against Iran and signed the nuclear deal. His successor, Donald Trump, had other ideas. He, rather unceremoniously, canceled the deal and clamped claustrophobic sanctions on Iran, but gave freedom to India to carry on with the project as it benefited Afghanistan.

The Indian government, through the periodic visits of its external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, and other officials, has routinely expressed its commitment to complete the project. However, the Iranians have a different story to tell.

And it is not a happy story with a happy ending.

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Not only did India baulk at its promise to provide a line of credit in 2018 to build the railway route from Chabahar to Zahedan, the Indian company that is supposed to build and manage port Shahid Behesti, India Port Global, is a leaderless entity that is in a state of drift.

Iranian sources allege that there is a conscious attempt by China, which is furiously building its Gwadar project in the Sea of Oman, and, now, the US, to puncture Chabahar. Or else, what was the reason that the US should announce a ‘connectivity project’ in Tashkent with Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan that does not include Iran or India?

Jennifer Murtazashivilli from the Center of Governance, University of Pittsburg, was quoted by the Voice of America arguing: “Given the difficult relations between the US and Iran, it would be difficult to secure funding for that southward route, so it is more politically feasible to connect Uzbekistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan, than to go through Iran right now.”

[Riaz Haq]

How #America Failed in #Afghanistan
Steve Coll: “You can’t just create an army of 300,000. I remember talking to the Pakistani generals about this…And they all said, ‘You just can’t do that. It won’t work.’ They turned out to be right.” #Pakistan #Kabul https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-america-failed-in-afghan...


On Sunday, as the Taliban entered Kabul—the last remaining major Afghan city not under the group’s control—the President of the country, Ashraf Ghani, fled to Tajikistan, making clear that the U.S.-backed Afghan government had collapsed. Five months ago, in April, President Joe Biden announced that all U.S. and nato troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Critics have accused the Administration of conducting a rushed, poorly planned, and chaotic withdrawal since then. On Thursday, the U.S. government announced that it would be sending in marines and soldiers to help evacuate embassy personnel. But the speed of the Taliban advance has stunned American officials and left desperate Afghans trying to flee the country. Responding to criticism about his plan, Biden has sought to shift blame to the Afghan government and its people, saying, “They have got to fight for themselves.”

I spoke by phone with my colleague, the New Yorker staff writer Steve Coll, about the situation in Afghanistan. The dean of Columbia Journalism School, Coll is the author of “Ghost Wars” and “Directorate S,” which together chronicle much of the history of the past several decades in Afghanistan and Pakistan.........

Your books on the region suggest that the Taliban may not have initially come to power, nor survived this long, had it not been for the aid and comfort of the Pakistani security apparatus—its military and intelligence services. How is Pakistan feeling about what’s happening now? I sense maybe there’s a tiny bit more anxiety than usual about what this might mean for Pakistan.

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It seems likely that it is partially a case of watching what you wish for. I am sure they did not forecast the speed with which events are unfolding this summer, and they may also have expected that the role of negotiations and the timetable by which political change would occur in Afghanistan would allow them to build a platform for greater international legitimacy and credibility for a potential Taliban government. One of the reasons that I would be anxious if I were them is that this is happening in a way that is already inducing governments such as Germany’s—not usually first out of the box on these things—to say that they won’t provide any aid to a government that imposes Sharia against the will of its people.

Zalmay Khalilzad, Biden’s negotiator, is trying to tell the Taliban that they won’t be recognized by anyone if they take power this way. Well, we’ll see. In the nineteen-nineties, there were only three governments in the world that recognized the Taliban: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. And this time around, too, Pakistan will be one of them, I expect. But things are different. The Saudis and the Emiratis have a new geopolitical outlook. But China is not the same country that it was in the nineties. How will China support Pakistan in trying to manage a second Taliban regime, especially one that may attract sanctions or other kinds of pressure from the United States and its allies? It isn’t the nineties, but Pakistan is still in the same awkward place that it was last time around. And to the extent that the Taliban return to a kind of internationalism of their interpretation of Islam and welcome Al Qaeda types or other forms of radicals, allow the Islamic State to incubate on Afghan soil, or don’t have the interest or the capacity to do something about it, you can be sure that, as it did the last time, all of that will blow back on Pakistan in one way or another, be that in the form of international pressure or instability.

[Riaz Haq]

(British) Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has backed the UK's armed forces chief over comments he made to Sky News suggesting the Taliban has "changed" since it was last in power 20 years ago.

https://news.sky.com/story/afghanistan-defence-secretary-ben-wallac...

General Sir Nick Carter also called the insurgents "a group of country boys who live by a code of honour" and said that they wanted an "inclusive" country.



He also told the BBC it "may well be a Taliban that is more reasonable, less repressive and, if you look at the way it is governing Kabul at the moment, there are some indications that it is more reasonable".


His remarks have since been criticised as "absurd" and "unpalatable".


But Mr Wallace told Kay Burley on Sky News: "He also said that he will see if they change. We are where we are, the Taliban are running the country."



Asked whether he was defending Sir Nick, Mr Wallace said: "Of course I am defending him. Nick Carter knows more than I will ever know about Afghanistan and the Taliban and more than most people. He is a deeply experienced general.

[Riaz Haq]

With #Afghan collapse & #Taliban's rise to power in #Afghanistan, #Pakistan, #China and #Russia have gained broad influence in #security matters in #CentralAsia region at the expense of the #US and #India. #BRI #CPEC #Infrastructure #connectivity https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/world/asia/afghanistan-russia.ht...

In the long post-Soviet jostling for power and influence in Central Asia sometimes called the new Great Game, an ever more dominant player has emerged from the chaos and confusion of Afghanistan: Russia, at least in security affairs.

“I wouldn’t say a wounded animal,” the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said on Tuesday of the withdrawal of NATO and the U.S. forces from Afghanistan. “But this is a group of countries that in a very painful and difficult way is giving up on the positions in the world they were used to for many decades.”

The strengthening of Russia’s position in Central Asian security matters is part of a broader shift brought about by the Taliban’s rise to power. Russia, China and Pakistan all stand to gain influence in regional affairs with the West’s withdrawal, while the United States and India stand to lose.

“I’m thinking of this as a post-Western or post-U.S. space now,” said Alexander Cooley, director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, and an authority on Central Asia. “It’s a region transforming itself without the United States.”


And largely to Russia’s benefit.

For Moscow, the chaotic American withdrawal, while reminiscent of Russia’s humiliating 1989 retreat from Afghanistan after its disastrous 10-year intervention, was a propaganda victory on a global scale.

From Latin America to Eastern Europe, Russia has fought for influence by insisting that the United States cannot be trusted. Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, warned that America’s friends in Ukraine could soon also be disappointed.

“The country is headed toward collapse, and the White House at a certain moment won’t even remember about its supporters in Kyiv,” Mr. Patrushev said in an interview published on Thursday.

The rapid fall of President Ashraf Ghani’s government was also a vindication of Russia’s yearslong strategy of building a diplomatic relationship with the Taliban. As Western diplomats scrambled to flee Kabul this week, Russian officials stayed put, with the Taliban guaranteeing the security of the Russian Embassy.

“They made a good impression on us,” Russia’s ambassador in Kabul, Dmitri Zhirnov, said of his embassy’s new Taliban guards on Russian state television this week. “They’re decent guys, well armed.”

At Russia’s most recent round of talks with the Taliban in Moscow, in July, the group pledged that its military gains would not be a threat to Russia or its interests. Russia hosted the Taliban for multiple rounds of talks even though the group is officially classified as a banned terrorist organization with Russia, making any association with it a potential crime.

“It’s pragmatism — and cynicism and double-think,” said Arkady Dubnov, a Russian expert on Central Asia, describing the Russian government’s strategy of building ties with the Taliban. “People are locked up in Russia for this kind of cooperation with a terrorist organization.”

Russia’s military exercises on the border represented another side of its strategy, a show of force to demonstrate its willingness to punish the Taliban if they should step out of line. “You can talk to the Taliban but you also need to show them a fist,” said Daniel Kiselyov, editor of Fergana, a Russian-language outlet focused on Central Asia.

Beyond Afghanistan, Russia still faces stiff competition from China’s debt and infrastructure diplomacy in Central Asia, a central thoroughfare of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative. And the American oil companies Chevron and Exxon have been pumping crude in Kazakhstan for years. On Tuesday, China and Tajikistan announced a joint border-patrol exercise.