HISTORY seems to be repeating itself in Afghanistan where no foreign force has ever won a foothold since Alexander the Great. Winners in the ongoing anti-terrorism war are once again the feuding Afghans themselves. The emerging scenario indicates that the players have only switched sides, with the ball remaining in the Afghan court. The outcome of the ethnic conference, held in Bonn in search of a road map for a broad-based government in Kabul goes to prove that point.
As for America, the US-led global coalition’s war against Taleban, the perceived symbol of modern-day terrorism is all but won. Al-Qaeda is in disarray and the Pashtun-dominated Taleban in a shambles with hardly any place to hide. That the remaining Taleban forces could fight to the finish or melt into the ethnic milieu only to re-emerge later is beside the point. All said and done, Afghanistan is basically Pashtuns who make up 40 percent of the country’s 20-million population and cannot be wished away.
The final Afghan scoreboard remains to be determined by how and when the majority Pashtuns are integrated back into mainstream national life and what say they are given in post-Taleban dispensation.
Though it is too early to count the cost of war in terms of lives and properties lost and the volume of terrorism contained, it has become clear that as the front-line state Pakistan has borne the brunt of it. That President Pervez Musharraf bore the brunt would be nearer the point. However, his detractors would say Musharraf sold Afghanistan for $2 billion in the process. After all, nothing comes free in life and the Americans know that.
When the US-led coalition forces pulverized Afghanistan in the past few weeks, India and Pakistan were busy fighting a fierce war on the diplomatic front with political one-upmanship as the prime objective. British and US leaders visited both New Delhi and Islamabad in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the US. Both Musharraf and Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee returned the visits in quest of political and diplomatic supremacy.
When Washington declared war on Taleban after the terror strikes, Musharraf was quick to jump on the global bandwagon. He offered full support to the coalition, including military bases in spite of strong protests from within his own country. Washington, true to its reputation as a good fair weather friend, was naturally pleased with the offer. It needed strategic Pakistan most in the campaign after the Gulf states expressed initial reluctance to offer the US launch sites for its warplanes. Thus the US and Pakistan, distrustful of each other in the best of times, rubbed shoulders in the name of a common cause.
India which has faced cross-border terrorism in Kashmir for over a decade did not lose time to join the global coalition. Unfortunately for its diplomatic offensive, the country is geographically removed from the theater of war unlike Pakistan which has shared borders and close ethnic ties with the Southeastern Asian nation. The US in its efforts to muster as much support as possible was only too eager to greet the outstretched hands of frienship.
India’s primary objective in the global campaign was to put Kashmir on the world’s center stage. Though Kashmir was and perhaps is far from the American mind, the US in its bid to ensure that neither India nor Pakistan won gains or losses in the campaign included certain Kashmir militant groups in its hit list — to be hit later when the time comes. That was score one for India. Its perspective was falling into place.
India like Russia and Iran has consistently supported the anti-Taleban Northern Alliance, dominated by ethnic minority Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras.
New Delhi had closed its embassy in Kabul on Sept. 26, 1996 soon after Taleban seized the Afghan capital from the alliance which held sway in the 1992-96 period following the ouster of the Soviets. New Delhi was quick to return to Kabul when it sent a diplomatic mission to the Afghan capital on Nov. 21 after the fall of Kabul to alliance forces. The Indian Foreign Ministry said at the time that the mission sought to express solidarity with the Afghan people and restore historic ties. New Delhi also pledged more than $100 million for the reconstruction of the war-torn country. The idea was to get a headstart when the chips are finally down.
India, which is known to be keen that its voice must be heard when solving the Afghan problem, is expected to back a multi-ethnic transitional government in Kabul led by India-born ex-King Zahir Shah. Presumably, New Delhi would also want a slice of the reconstruction cake. In his talks with US, British and Soviet leaders earlier this month, Vajpayee aggressively pushed for a greater say for New Delhi in the post-Taleban Afghanistan.
While in Moscow, Vajpayee also declared that the international community ”should not tolerate states which assist or harbor terrorists and use terrorism as an instrument of their state policy”. It clearly was a reference to Pakistan which denies that it is the breeding ground of Kashmiri “freedom fighters” who, India says, strike across the border causing large-scale deaths and destruction.
Pakistan, on its part, abhors the idea of a hostile Northern Alliance-led government on its western border. A post-Taleban regime without a major say for majority Pashtuns is unthinkable for Pakistan, 15 percent of whose population is ethnic Pashtun. It would also be political suicide for Musharraf to further alienate the Pashtuns who have the unstinted support of the country’s Muslim religious groupings.
Islamabad is facing a peculiar dichotomy. The country which helped to break the back of Taleban is faced with the prospect of having to live with a hostile regime led by the victorious Northern Alliance. The situation is a throwback to the period when the Soviets ruled the roost in Afghanistan. By the look of the scene emerging from Afghanistan’s fractious chaos, Pakistan along with the US needs to rework its strategies while living with a neighbor ruled by ethnic minorities it had set out to destroy.
The Afghanistan quagmire is clearly getting murkier for Pakistan and the US. That the global anti-terrorism war has had a successful start is some consolation. That, by all means, is a redeeming factor in itself.
While Pakistan, flush with millions of American dollars, is laughing all the way to the bank, who knows India may have the last laugh, diplomatically speaking.
