Pak-Afghan talks: a futile exercise?

Dr Mohammad Taqi
The Taliban could not be a cohesive and resilient insurgent force without the Pakistani patronage ranging from food, shelter and fuel to diplomatic, logistical and military support Afghan leader Hamid Karzai completed what might be his last visit to Pakistan as the president before he steps down next year. The Pakistani civilian leadership on the other hand has taken up the helm just recently. The principal subject of the visit the Afghan Taliban and their powerful backers in the Pakistani security establishment are well aware of the lame-duck status of Mr Karzai and Mr Nawaz Sharif still feeling his way early in his third stint as the prime minister. Mr Karzai came with high hopes and left with tall promises from Pakistan. Other than breaking the diplomatic ice, there is little tangible that may follow this visit immediately. Mr Karzai should know that one could not play catch up in less than nine months left in ones presidential term. What he has not been able to achieve in 12 years is unlikely to happen as he heads out, staying an extra day in Pakistan notwithstanding. He will likely remain a key player in Afghan politics, perhaps even a kingmaker, but right this minute time is not on his side. With the summer fighting season about to end in Afghanistan, all sides will try to hold on to their gains and stay put. If the Taliban have rightly boasted anything, it is their patience. They will continue to bide their time till the fog clears around the drawdown of the United States forces after March 2014 and a new political dispensation takes shape in Kabul post-April 2014. It is unlikely that the Taliban will start negotiating with the Kabul government in any meaningful manner at this juncture; they dont have a pressing need to. In addition to this immediate tactical reason for the Taliban not negotiating directly with the Afghan government, there is a historic and strategic component as well. Before and after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the Pakistani proxy Mujahideen groups would not talk directly to the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) government. Pakistan made little effort then to make the Mujahideen groups, based in Peshawar at the time, to negotiate with the PDPA government. Despite buzzwords like Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process thrown around by Pakistanis, little seems to have changed in theirs and the second generation of their proxies strategy, which seeks to delegitimise the government in Kabul and simultaneously gain recognition for the Taliban. Talks with Mr Karzai notwithstanding, the Pakistani meta-narrative now, like then, remains that the government in Kabul is not representative of the Afghan, especially the Pashtun, people. The Pakistani intelligentsia, including many Punjab-based liberal voices, also toes its security establishments line in undermining an elected Afghan governments legitimacy. They have criticised Mr Karzai from alleged corruption in his government to accommodating non-Pashtun Afghans. They have impugned the composition of the security forces in Afghanistan including the Afghan National Army. One leading Pakistani liberal analyst has labelled the Afghan army as anti-Pakistan. Interestingly, the majority of Pakistanis ostensibly losing their sleep over Pashtun representation in the Afghan government and forces are neither Pashtun nor from Pakistans Pashtun regions.

The Pakistani right-wingers, some liberals and the security establishment being on the same page make an interesting milieu for Mr Sharif to formulate his Afghanistan policy in. Other than the catchphrases and clichd diplomatic terms there is not much that Mr Sharif and his foreign policy team has shown yet for Pakistans potential contribution to the roadmap to peace in Afghanistan. His motivation to overturn the meta-narrative prevalent in Pakistan that virtually paralyses civilian governments to move meaningfully on the Afghan issue seems lacking. Like the Taliban, whose first regime he had the dubious distinction of recognising in 1997, Mr Sharif may also be holding out. But the Afghan quagmire will not disappear with Mr Karzai stepping down next year. Mr Sharif will have to grapple with the Taliban issue a few months down the road and quite possibly for the rest of his term. The sooner he gets around to it the better. Mr Sharif also knows from his previous experience that the Pakistani security establishment exercises tremendous leverage over the Afghan Taliban and he is also aware that the latter work hand-in-glove with the Pakistani jihadist groups. He would be ill advised to believe that a Taliban victory or even preponderance in a coalition in Afghanistan would reduce jihadism in Pakistan. The Pakistani security establishment and many analysts argue that the former does not have absolute control over the Taliban citing, for example, Mullah Omars regime bucking Pakistan on the Durand Line issue. However, without Pakistani assistance there could not have been an Afghan Taliban revival and survival. The Taliban could not be a cohesive and resilient insurgent force without the Pakistani patronage ranging from food, shelter and fuel to diplomatic, logistical and military support. The three prongs of the Taliban insurgency, viz. the Haqqani terrorist network, Gulbuddin Hekmatyars Hizb-e-Islami and Mullah Omars Quetta Shura, might have shrivelled were it not for their uninterrupted lifeline from Pakistan. The three groups indeed have had a rare instance or two of disagreeing with their Pakistani backers but only in the face of an irritant like the US action in Afghanistan. Mr Hamid Karzai and the US both have failed to make accountable the Pakistani security establishment or the wheels within its wheels that have cultivated the Taliban for almost two decades now. With the US set to withdraw come hell or high water, the external deterrent to this nurturing would be removed. The domestic blowback from Pakistan using jihadist militancy to prosecute foreign policy would not disappear though. Mr Sharif will most likely have to handle exponentially growing jihadist terrorism. With an uptick in the Afghan Talibans fortunes, their buoyed Pakistani cohorts, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), are less likely to be amenable to the back door deals that Mr Sharifs party is in the habit of cutting with them in Punjab. The TTP will likely spurn or violate any peace deal Mr Sharif has to offer. It is high time that Mr Sharif commissions an overhaul of not just Pakistans Afghanistan policy but thinks outside the box to counter the meta-narrative that has provided the ideological space for the existing disastrous policy to thrive in. Mr Sharif may have great intentions towards Pakistans neighbours, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Unless Mr Sharif firms up his words with action the Pak-Afghan talks exercise may just be an exercise in futility.