It was inevitable. A talk about Afghanistan at the brink of transition, in more than one ways , started off with Kabul’s significance for Islamabad and turned into one about how much responsibility lies with Pakistan.
The panelists, Hina Rabbani Khar, Vali Nasr, Maleeha Lodhi and Ahmad Rashid, agreed that the degree of success or failure of the Afghan elections as well as the American withdrawal from the country will have repercussions for Pakistan. Their collective advice: Pakistan as well as other neighbours should stay out of Afghan elections. Rashed Rahman moderated the talk.
Lodhi said that Allama Iqbal had termed Afghanistan the “heart of Asia” and said that conflict in Afghanistan would mean turmoil for Asia. “There are more unknowns about the transition than ‘knowns’. Pakistan must prepare for the worst.” She said it was a tragedy that “a promising peace process” that could have taken place in Doha was thwarted by Karzai, leading to the US abandoning it.
Ahmed Rashid said the “real tragedy” was that after spending $1 trillion in Afghanistan, no one, including the US, kneos what was going to happen. Transitions in Afghanistan are worse than Pakistan, he said, adding that if there is a “crisis of confidence” in the elections “all bets are off.”
When Rahman asked what Pakistan could do to make the transition smooth, Lodhi suggested that the it contain militancy within its own borders and break the nexus between the TTP and Afghan Taliban. “Hope is a not a policy or strategy,” she said while stressing the need for action.
Nasr said that Pakistan had more to lose now than it did in 1989. While commenting on the Doha peace talks, he said that he had never been convinced that the Afghan Taliban had any inclination to negotiate with the US. They wanted to negotiate when there was a threat that the US could destroy them, but when America gave a date of exit “why would they?”. The Afghan Taliban knew that the Afghan security forces lack the capability to destroy them. The TTP case is similar, he said later in the discussion. They will only negotiate if they see a danger that they they would be wiped out.
Rashid said the biggest failure of the Pakistani government was not having a strategy for national security.
He also said that Pakistan has a responsibility towards Afghanistan.
Lodhi said the “tyranny of geography” bound Pakistan and Afghanistan. “We can influence but cannot ensure a result,” she said. She said Pakistan had played its part in bringing the Afghan Taliban to the table but Afghanistan and the US hadn’t kept their end of the bargain.
Khar said the “onus of responsibility” lay with Afghanistan, whose “terrible leadership” hadn’t helped matters. The ideal scenario, she said, would be one where the Afghan government would allow all entities that make up the Afghan nation to be part of the electoral process. When non-state elements are allowed to act like the state, things don’t pan out well, she said.
The discussion then moved towards what Pakistani government could do about the TTP (choke their funding and contain them) and whether or not negotiations with the TTP were the right way forward. Nasr repeated that the TTP would not negotiate until threatened with extintion. When an audience member questioned the effectiveness of force, Lodhi said that military action had worked in Swat, adding that she believed that talks and force were two tools that have to be used together.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 23rd, 2014.