By Naveed Ahmad
Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani played in the hands of his host at
Amritsar; he lambasted Pakistan, he attacked the country. Alas, Kabul’s dilemma
has never been lack of wealth but dearth of statesmen; thus the man from the
Heart of Asia spoke India’s mind.
For the Karzais, Ghanis and Abdullahs of Afghanistan, the country is a podium
and a goldmine. For much of the Afghan politicians and their Indian patrons,
Afghan history is either 5000 years old or began right with the events of 9/11.
Where were these politicians when the Soviets backed by India launched a
full-scale occupation using every resource from brute air power to deadly land
forces?
Ashraf Ghani left Afghanistan in 1977 for
Denmark and eventually the US. The man returned to Kabul in December 2001 to
become Hamid Karzai’s top financial advisor. Mariam Ghani, the Afghan
president’s daughter, still resides in the US, her birthplace. She occasionally
visits Kabul, perhaps to keep connections and funding alive for her activism.
His son, Tarek Ghani is a postdoctoral fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School at the
Princeton University.
Dr Abdullah Abdullah remained conveniently
aligned with Kabul’s puppet regime albeit for a brief period of one year – 1985
to 1986 – when he moved to Peshawar and worked in a hospital. Come early 1990s,
he became the right-hand of fellow Tajik warlord Ahmad Shah Masud. He survived
in Kabul’s power circles till 1996 when Taliban took over the Afghan capital.
Abdullah held the foreign ministry portfolio from 2001 to 2005. According to Anis Daily newspaper, Abdullah’s wife Fakhria lives in
India with her four school-going children.
Both the leaders at the helm have little
idea of the suffering an average Afghan withstood during the Soviet invasion,
Taliban’s takeover and the suffering endured under the NATO. Like Modi, their
best bet seems changing geography by adversely and irreparably damaging
Pakistan. The Indian leaders’ perverse ambition aims at bringing ever more
chaos along Afghanistan’s bordering regions than any respite from its own
volcanic faultlines. Islamabad, meanwhile, has corrected its course by not only
essentially eliminating Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctuaries in its tribal regions
and elsewhere but also ensuring improved surveillance and management of its
western border, which remain overwhelmingly un-secured from the Afghan side. As
much as Pakistan did, it did so to deny militant movement into the war-ravaged
country but also to secure its own territory of foreign proxies and miscreants.
For Pakistan’s security and development, a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan
is undoubtedly a key pre-requisite.
How far has Afghanistan come since Bonn
conference in 2002 when the comity of nations began the process of facilitating
its transition from pariah to a mainstream nation-state? The challenge faced
then still confronts the world. What can be done for the land-locked, tribally
and racially-divided country?
Taliban are resurging, not along the
Pakistan-bordering eastern provinces but in the centre, the north and the west.
The Afghan troops and police have failed to stem desertions. The tribal elders
are refusing to pay state taxes and embrace mainstream economy. Pakistan has
nothing to do with the dares listed above. Yet, Ghani and Abdullah prefer
travelling more often to the foreign capitals than their country’s provincial
headquarters.
Embracing India’s clandestine foreign policy
goals of disrupting peace in Balochistan and branding Pakistan as a terrorist
state risk peace and development in Afghanistan whose citizens are no less
desperate to escape to Europe than the displaced Syrians and Yemenis. The Afghans
won’t have the luxury of foreign financial assistance as enjoyed since 2001 for
the donor fatigue is only worsening with mounting humanitarian crises in the
Middle East and North Africa. Certainly, the Heart of Asia offers Afghanistan
last firm prospect to get the best of friendly assistance in realms of
security, reconstruction and development. Unless Afghans place a true statesman
at the helm in Kabul, Ajit Doval – Modi’s National Security Advisor – may
realise his alleged dream to “fight Pakistan to the last Afghan”.
Naveed Ahmad is a Pakistani
investigative journalist and academic with extensive reporting experience in
the Middle East and North Africa. He is based in Doha and Istanbul. He tweets
@naveed360
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