Will Indo-Pak relations ever be good? (Part 3)

Afghanistan has always been central to Pakistan’s strategic interests in the region. Its military planners have often referred to what they call “strategic depth” that a pro-Pakistan regime in Afghanistan would offer them vis-à-vis India. What precisely this so-called “strategic depth” implies in terms of geo-political advantages remains open to debate. Anyway, with Shiite Iran to the northwest of Aghanistan, which is not exactly an ally of predominantly Sunni Pakistan, Afghanistan is more than just a handy buffer. It also offers a strategic advantage to Pakistan in its attempt to control the trade routes with Central Asian republics.

Afghanistan has also been more than useful to Pakistan’s strategists in dealing with the US. Ever since 9/11, the US has had its gaze transfixed on Afghanistan. The presence of Osama bin Laden and his benefactors, the Taliban, in the Af-Pak region along the porous borders in the Pashtun-dominated areas has remained a cause of concern for the US. That is why every US administration has sought to link its economic and military aid to Pakistan to the latter’s active cooperation in capturing the top leadership of Al-Qaeda and neutralising its cadres, other than suppressing the Taliban in Afghanistan. For Pakistan to be able to do this, it has had to move much of its armed forces to its western borders.

Many in the Pakistani army and the ISI have never been happy about fighting the Taliban. They have played an active role in nurturing the Taliban since the days of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. They have armed them to the teeth and indoctrinated them with radical, jehadi ideology. And, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the cold war, and the withdrawal of Russian forces from Afghanistan, the Taliban has been a useful weapon in the hands of the Pakistani army and the ISI in its covert, low-intensity war with India in Kashmir. So, destroying its own creation has never found acceptance in the Pakistani security establishment.

These geo-political compulsions dictated by foreign policy hawks within the Pakistani establishment have resulted in a duplicitous double game that Pakistan has played to perfection. Every time its armed forces make gains against the Taliban or Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, there is a terror strike in India. This makes the Indian government react with anger that is followed by the usual sabre-rattling that accompanies it to appease the Indian public. The attack on the Indian parliament when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the prime minister is a typical case in point, which best demonstrates the efficacy of this long-standing strategy of Pakistan.

After that attack on the Indian parliament, public opinion was very much in favour of some kind of action against Pakistan. What exactly this ought to have been was hazy and difficult to determine at the time. Vajpayee decided to rattle the Pakistani establishment. He ordered an unprecedented military buildup along the Indo-Pak border. His speeches began to talk of retribution. “Do do hath ho hi jaye”, he thundered. This made Pakistan respond by relocating its own armed forces to its border with India. The establishment moved its troops bordering Afghanistan in the northwest to its eastern frontier with its traditional foe, India. This it portrayed, to its benefactors like the US, as being defensive action. And, the Americans fell for it. The noose that had begun to tighten around the necks of the Afghan Taliban and the Al-Qaeda was loosened. These forces got a badly-needed reprieve.

* To be continued...