Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul recently has raised expectations about the viability of the peace process between Kabul and Islamabad while highlighting India’s success in peeling Kabul away from dependency on Pakistan’s ruling elite.
As well, the meeting served to cement US regional policy goals: If realpolitik supplants rigid ideology, then policymakers in Islamabad will need to rethink their approach to China, India and the US while revisiting their Afghanistan strategy.
In April, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua and her Afghan counterpart met to discuss rapprochement between India and Pakistan. This procured a meeting in Kabul where Pakistan’s army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, remarked that regions develop as a whole, not individual countries.
This provides political and strategic insight into Pakistan’s regional objectives. Islamabad is reeling domestically, fiscally and socially. Its military establishment isn’t used to securing or mobilizing political support for objectives that remain out of its scope. Islamabad is looking into different alternative approaches to the Durand Line while parrying domestic, bilateral and global challenges.
Pakistan is nearly insolvent and cannot secure long-term funding to address its encirclement by Islamic State, al-Qaeda and others. This is why US President Donald Trump’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF) badly damaged Pakistan, for it exposed a profound fallacy that anchored Pakistan’s security establishment, namely its bilateral relations with China.
Thinking that both China and Saudi Arabia would screen Pakistan from international scrutiny enabled Islamabad’s military leadership to ignore the very socio-political and economic trials that affect both Beijing and Riyadh. Having secured Pakistan’s isolation, the US has placed Pakistan in a dangerously precarious position. Hence the high-level diplomatic meetings in Kabul referenced above.
Islamabad continues to watch New Delhi outmaneuver both the US and China in securing Kabul’s interest in the opening of Chabahar Port. With the port fully operational, Kabul’s dependency on Pakistan is over.
According to Zubair Motiwala, chairman of the Afghan-Pakistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry, “India has succeeded in penetrating Kabul, slashing Pakistan’s market share more than 50% in two years.” This only exacerbates what every member of the ruling establishment in Islamabad knows: Pakistan cannot secure its interests in the tribal regions and remains dependent on US drone strikes.
Being seen as incapable of protecting its own territorial integrity grossly exacerbates what the Pakistani deep state cannot acknowledge: domestic fallout from US dependency. Call it the Pakistani paradox.
Islamabad continues to watch as allies become dependent rivals. Team Trump seeks to solicit openly what the Pakistani citadel cannot manage, namely the rough regional politics of civil-military relations in spheres of interest antithetical to Pakistan’s ruling elite, while India shifts its base to a strategic level harnessing Afghan independence.
With the US willing to invest deeper into Afghan connectivity, ignoring Pakistani security interests while watching socio-political pressure build on its western borders, Islamabad must address a horror it has never faced, namely vacant alliances and dwindling security resources.
Here’s the Pakistan paradox that haunts the ruling elite: Having been led by military and security agencies, Islamabad’s Afghan objectives have virtually no room or concern for the very requisite sources needed to win its engagement with multiplying domestic enemies.
Pakistan needs what every credible Western critic of the citadel has exposed, namely a vibrant civil society and polity. Having enjoyed its life and identity as a rentier political economy, Pakistan’s security establishment has become the domain of a deep state divorced from sound allies and secure resources for the long war.
India pakistan se 5 times big country hai. Iski population 5 times zaida hai pakistan se. We have been through 3 wars since 1947 and many more on small scale. Mujy sirf ye batao ke hamara kiya ukhar liya hai india ne. We are still independent. Apnay mulak main kush hain aur indians ki cricket main dulai kar rahay hain. Sorry for champhion trophy. Kuch bhi nain howa humain abhi tak tu jab takh Allah hamaray sath hai tu log hamara ek bal bhi bhikka nain kar sakhtay. Wo log jo ek khuda par ittefaq nain kar sakhtay wo humain kiya maat dain ge.????????????????Bas tum log log apnay dallaton ko bhi mar sakhtay ho.
Ajmal Hussain, come on. taiwan did what china coule not..
people are in peace and living in prosperity..
all that they want is taiwan’s gold and land for strategic value.. they don’t care about the people..
Pakistan ki halat toh tab Patli hogi jab Baluchistan n Punjab Pakistan se alag ho jayega. Abhi toh American bhi katore me koi bheekh nahi dete
Soon Americans will get lost from Afghanistan and this land would become the graveyard for the Indians interests IA
Satyendra Singh http://www.pravdareport.com/opinion/columnists/30-05-2016/134571-cia_drugs-0/
Malay Chowdhury http://www.pravdareport.com/opinion/columnists/30-05-2016/134571-cia_drugs-0/
CIA don’t need drug-money like ISI, they will never trade in drugs because ultimately it will reach the US market.
Holland has had anti-Pakistan venom, in his drink before he wrote this article.
India will never replace Pakistan in long-term, though short term Sheningans may win them some accolade. Writer is totally clueless, he has no knowledhe whatsoever about Afghanistan & Pakistan. And it’s US who has to rethink her Afghan policy & not Pakistan. US knocking out Fazlullah in the most recent strike in Afgjanistan, is a case in point.
Durand line is an open & shut transaction, author better brush up his knowlegde on how sacro-sanct borders have been in last 5 decades, with only a few abberations.
FATF is not new to Pakisyan & so are the consequences. Some thing to worry, but nothing substantial. Anymore arm twisting & US knows what’s coming. They therefore better dare not. Even if China or Saudia don’t help.
Insolvency is a problem, but countries don’t die even if they default. Look at Greece & Argentina.
As for Pakistan’s isolation, the author probably had a nightmare… SCO, THE MOST RECENT MOOT, a clear example. And how Russo-Pak relationship has developed on the last 5 years, is probably not a topic of Holland’s interest.
As for Chahbahar, my advice yto author would be to see the map again, look at the size of Chabahar & the capacity & size of Gwadar. And what will India do in 2 years, after which Chahbahar won’t be there Anymore, it would in all probability be a subsidiary of Gwadar.
As for Pakistan & her capacity to protect her borders & domestic area, suffice it to say that X border terrorism through Afghan territory happens with US’s tacit approval & it has been thoroughly defeated up until now. India knows it as well as US, author might need to do some catching up. Though stacking & displacement of ISIS/DAESH from Syria to Afghanis6an & their further employment at Pak border is on, it will be defeated as other joint ventures have been.
Lastly about vibrant civil society & polity; where is it even to be seen in US??? RIP Mr Holland. Better find a new profession or start looking up a few research books, not US tabloids. . Failing which…. Goodluck & Godspeed
Syed Zaeem Ahmad pakis r being buggered by their own army, no need for any other country 2 do the job ..this is called being hoisted with1’s own petard.
lol
Gul Akbar Your country is going to become an insolvent country
Gul Akbar Then definitely Pakistan is known as Halala-Land
Pakistani army is also heavily involved in drug trade so fencing has no use.first seperate army and civilian authorty as in most democracy where army works under civilian control
This is a verbose thatsays almost nothing….
Wishful thinking
This is a red neck moron writing his wet dreams on some region and people he barely understands. Typical joker!
The civil society of Pakistan is still living in state of denial. Instead of looking inside and searching for an answer, they are busy finding an excuse where there is none.
NATO, actually USA is in desperate need of another port way to deliver its supplies to Afghanistan NATO bases, that is actually delivered through port of Karachi, Trump,s hussling regime change policy ( actually Kushner- Kissinger policy) is trying to cash Iran, the same way it got Pyongyang, by showing fire and fury, lets hope what we get to know in further us escalations against Iran. India is playing on both tables, indian corporations are taking iranian oil amid sanctions, the strategic bandar abbas port ways stood mysterious while working on chabahar.