Afghanistan and Pakistan are sinking deeper into disarray, and the US bears a significant share of the blame. As long as this long-troubled region remains mired in turmoil, Islamist terrorism is likely to continue to thrive, with grave implications for international security.
Begin with Afghanistan. In the nearly 22 months since the US abandoned the country to the Pakistan-backed Taliban militia, a terrorist super-state has emerged. Beyond committing atrocities against Afghans and reimposing medieval practices, including reducing Afghan women’s status to that of chattels, the Taliban has sustained cozy ties with al-Qaeda and several other terror groups.
As a leaked Pentagon assessment reports, Afghanistan has become a safe haven and staging ground for al-Qaeda and Islamic State terrorists planning attacks on targets in Asia, Europe and the US.
This should come as no surprise. The Taliban regime’s Cabinet includes a veritable list of international terrorists and narcotics traffickers, and it was in Kabul last year that a US drone strike killed al-Qaeda leader and UN-designated global terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri.
While the Islamic State might be seeking to expand its international operations from Afghanistan, it is al-Qaeda’s alliance with the Taliban that poses the greater long-term international threat.
When the US withdrew suddenly from the country, it not only abandoned its allies there, but also left behind billions of US dollars’ worth of sophisticated US military equipment, in addition to several military bases, including the strategically valuable Bagram Airfield. The Taliban is the world’s only terrorist organization with an air force, however rudimentary.
In a 12-page document issued last month, US President Joe Biden’s administration sought to shift the blame for the Afghan fiasco onto former US president Donald Trump, saying that Biden’s “choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor.”
However, while the Trump administration undoubtedly cut a terrible deal with the Taliban, it was Biden who — overruling his top military generals — made the choices that triggered Afghanistan’s descent into chaos and facilitated the Taliban’s swift return to power.
US policy toward Pakistan has been deeply misguided. It is thanks to a longstanding partnership with the US that Pakistan’s military and its rogue Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency have used terrorism as an instrument of state policy against neighboring countries.
The Trump administration seemed to recognize this, and pledged to keep Pakistan at arm’s length until it ended its unholy alliance with terrorist organizations.
However, the Biden administration has reversed this policy. Although Pakistan played an integral role in enabling the Taliban — which the ISI helped create in the early 1990s — to defeat the US in Afghanistan, the Biden administration helped the Pakistani government stave off a debt default last year.
Soon after, the US unveiled a US$450 million deal to modernize Pakistan’s US-supplied F-16s — which it values as delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons. The US helped Pakistan get off the “gray list” maintained by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, the intergovernmental agency combating terrorist financing.
Pakistan faces profound political instability, rooted in a skewed civil-military relationship. Pakistan’s military has long been untouchable. It has ruled directly for 33 years. When not technically in power, it has insisted on a pliant civilian administration that defers to the generals’ de facto leadership.
Pakistan’s military, and its intelligence and nuclear establishment, have never answered to the civilian government. On the contrary, since 2017, two Pakistani prime ministers have been ousted after falling out of favor with the military.
However, supporters of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan are mounting the first direct challenge to the military’s authority since Pakistan’s founding 75 years ago. Following Khan’s arrest on corruption charges earlier this month, mass protests erupted across Pakistan. Demonstrators stormed military properties, including the army headquarters and a major ISI facility, and set ablaze a top army commander’s home.
As the political crisis unfolds, Pakistan continues to teeter on the brink of default. It is being kept afloat by short-term loans from allies, until it can convince the IMF to restart a suspended bailout program. This gives the international community leverage to force change in the country.
Domestic developments, especially the unprecedented anti-military protests, have the greatest potential to force a rebalancing of civilian-military relations.
However, the military is unlikely to go down without a fight: The creeping shadow of military rule has already led to mass arrests, with Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir announcing trials under military law of civilians charged in the recent violence.
The military could declare a state of emergency, to give itself carte blanche to stifle dissent, or it could stage another coup. The conflict could also erupt into civil war — ideal conditions for international terrorist forces to thrive.
Pakistan remains a hub of terrorism and is contributing significantly to Afghanistan’s destabilization. Unless the nexus between Pakistan’s military and terrorist groups is severed, the situation in Afghanistan would not improve, and the battle against international terrorism would not be won.
Brahma Chellaney is a professor of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research and a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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