Pakistan and the Idea of “Neutral†Afghanistan

In early July this year, former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made a statement which forced many people inside and outside the country to sit up and take notice,

“Pakistan should abandon this thinking that Pakistan has to keep influence in Afghanistan,†he told Dunya TV. “Neither will they (the Afghans) accept influence, nor should the pro-influence people here (in Pakistan) insist on it.â€
Continuing his rather stunning “confessional†, he said: “Our policy in the past has failed. Neither will such a policy work in future. We have a centuries-old relationship, and we can maintain this relationship only when we remain neutral and support the government elected there with the desire of the Afghan people.â€

Still earlier in January last, the present Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, first used the words “Afghan neutrality†when he told the then British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, that any future initiative on Afghanistan should maintain that country’s “historic neutrality†[which was first practised as foreign policy during Amir Amanullah Khan’s regime (1919-29) and was fiercely opposed by the British empire and other Western powers] and ensure that the Afghan soil was not used against any of its neighbours.

In both cases, however, the motives that prompted the present and former Prime Ministers to bring up the subject of Afghan neutrality, which is normally an anathema to Pakistan, were self-evident. The international community is only too well aware of the core importance that Afghanistan—the eagerly sought-after “strategic depth†—has traditionally held for Pakistan in the latter’s insatiable quest for regional supremacy over India. There is no reason to believe that Islamabad has all of a sudden drastically changed its foreign policy regarding Afghanistan. On the other hand, as we will see presently, it is pursuing its traditional policy with more vigour than ever before.

Sharif’s advocacy of Afghan neutrality was occasioned by his present policy of distancing his party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz-faction), from the close relationship built up over the years with fundamentalist groups in the Punjab province. The PML-N, which had promoted the Taliban in Afghanistan and hardcore Islamist organisations in Punjab, is now under severe attack from other political parties and civil society groups for continuing its policy despite the virtually unbridled growth of militancy in the province and its deleterious impact on governance. However, Sharif’s party remains beholden to the militant groups because they help deliver valuable numbers of votes in elections.

On the other hand, the present Prime Minister was urging the British Government for facilitating Afghan neutrality in the future because of the widespread impression in Pakistan that Western governments would eventually exploit the unsettled Afghan-Pakistan border to start military operations within the country using Pakistan’s failure to rein in the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups.

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HOWEVER, the fact remains that both statements, despite the eminence of the speakers, scarcely deserve a second look. For, somewhere around the time the present Prime Minister was advocating future neutrality for Afghanistan, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate picked up a senior Taliban commander, Abdul Ghani Baradar, in its bid to, firstly, sabotage Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s reconciliation efforts with the Taliban, and secondly, to forestall Kabul’s endeavour to involve New Delhi in vital domestic developments.

Baradar was one of the important Taliban leaders who were clearly inclined towards exploring the prospects of peace negotiations with the Karzai Government. He was arrested mid-way in his plans because the ISI suspected that he was in touch with the Indian Government as well, and that Karzai, New Delhi and a section of the Taliban were trying to build up a joint front against Pakistan and the USA. The arrest also destabilised the secret negotiations that were going on at the time between the United Nations representatives and the Taliban in Dubai.

While the rude ISI intervention in President Karzai’s negotiations with the Taliban (which had initially caused serious misgivings in the Indian camp, since dispelled to a large extent by high-level Afghan visits to New Delhi) has been exposed, further evidences of an intensifying Pakistani campaign to broaden that country’s presence in Afghanistan are piling up.

One of these is the Pakistan Army’s as well as the ISI’s clear design to ensure a pivotal role for the Jalaluddin Haqqani faction of the Taliban in all future political developments in Afghanistan. The Army Chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, made two significant visits earlier this year, to Washington and to Kabul, after his services were extended by a further three years by a helplessly beholden government of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani.

The Army’s aim is to ensure that when a reconciliation of sorts occurs between the Karzai Government and the Taliban, Pakistan’s long-term protégé, the Haqqani faction, obtains a substantial position, and to make sure that the Northern Alliance and other Karzai allies are proportionately sidelined in the new arrangement.

Indications are that the Pakistan Army and the ISI are willing to play a waiting game in achieving their twin objectives, and are even more prepared to play their hand at the right time to gain a position, through their proxies in the new power structure, to be able to unilaterally guide the direction that Afghanistan should take in conducting its domestic and international affairs. Roughly speaking, a return to the 1996-2001 period during the Taliban rule in the country. Pakistan appears to be fully alive to the fundamental difference between the Taliban period and today, namely, that Afghanistan will no longer be isolated and ignored by the international community as it was then and which largely facilitated Pakistan’s role in creating and guiding the Taliban.

Despite the strong impression prevailing in India that the Manmohan Singh Government succumbs all too readily to US pressure, Afghanistan is one sphere where it has so far resisted and even foiled at times American manoeuvres to promote Pakistan’s interests in that country. To a large extent, this has been accomplished through cooperation with other regional powers like Russia, Iran and China. Eventually, these countries are likely to build up an effective campaign for an international guarantee for a neutral Afghanistan.

It is against this backdrop that one should view the seemingly surprising statements of Prime Minister Gilani and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. In one sense, the statements represent the growing cleavage between the Pakistan Army and the ISI on the one hand and the political establishment on the other hand. In another sense, they mark yet another pointer to the growing irrelevance of politicians and political parties in the currently democratic Pakistan.

The author is an analyst of South and Central Asian affairs.