Pakistan and Afghanistan

 Major General Inam Ul Haque, in his opinion piece dated 7 January 2024, writes about the misunderstanding and confusion surrounding Pakistan’s policies regarding support for the Afghan refugees. His discourse focuses on the humanitarian dimension of the relationship - its impact on both societies; the need for repatriation of refugees and its linkage with the Afghan Government’s policies; and the shift in Pakistan’s Afghan policy. The writer has made a praiseworthy effort to remove the mental cobwebs that distract the people not familiar with the ground realities.

Since the dawn of history, the border between the Hindustan Peninsula and its North Western regions has been like a permeable membrane that expanded and contracted intermittently.  Throughout history, the human waves flowed uninterrupted across the Khyber and Bolan pass into the fertile Sindh and Gangetic valleys. Even though the British, after dismantling the Mughal Empire, aggressively and systematically gained control over the features dominating the approaches into India, they could not plug the North Western Frontier. The maximum they could do was to keep the Russian bear as far away from their Indian realm as possible. In securing India's North Western Frontier, the British stepped on lands traditionally and historically claimed by Afghanistan.  This was inevitable because the border remained porous until 1893 when the British demarcated it and established the Durand Line.

In 1947, the Dominion of Pakistan inherited a   contentious Western border that prevented normal relations between the two countries.  The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on the Christmas Eve of 1979. The inherited resentment between the two countries was temporarily masked during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Pakistan, the country that was going to be in the eye of the storm for the next nine years, remained silent, at pains to comprehend the situation before evolving an appropriate response. The U.S. and its allies initially reacted stoically as, according to their reasoning, Afghanistan, had since long been considered a country within the Soviet sphere of influence. Intellectuals and diplomats in the West though considered the invasion as yet another step towards the fruition of the centuries-old Russian dream of reaching the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.

Peter the Great died fifty-one years before the birth of the United States. In his much-talked-about will: Le Testament de Pierre le Grand, Peter advised his successors to

“Approach as near as possible to Constantinople and India. Whoever governs there will be the true sovereign of the world. Consequently, excite continual wars, not only in Turkey, but also in Persia and, in the decadence of Persia, penetrate through the Persian Gulf as far as India.” 

When Peter the Great was referring to India, he, even as Alexander the Great, his generals, and the ancient Greek historians, had in mind the land which now constitutes Pakistan. It is alleged that the testament was a forgery made in the late 1700s by a Polish general, and published in 1812 in Napoleonic France to portray Russia as an expansionist power. Despite having been declared a forgery, the testament was widely quoted in the West, particularly in the aftermath of the Soviet advance into Afghanistan.

The mask of temporary bonhomie between Pakistan and Afghanistan was off soon after the Soviets left Afghanistan. The post-Soviet- Withdrawal scenario was marked by the advent of the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, Operation Enduring Freedom ( the euphemism for the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan), the drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal areas, and the rise of TTP. General Inam mentions the steps taken by the Government of Pakistan in collaborations with the UNHCR to ameliorated the sufferings of the Afghan refugees.  The Pak-Afghan imbroglio, however,  is not going to go away any time soon.  The situation has some parallels with the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. The U.S. with all its might, could not control the illegal crossing of the U.S.-Mexico border despite a very expensive and high-tech border fence. 

I mentioned earlier that during the recent past, the Afghanistan–Pakistan border barrier was built by Pakistan along the Pak-Afghan border to prevent terrorism, arms, and drug trafficking, as well as refugees, illegal immigration, smuggling, and infiltration across the approximately 2,670-kilometre (1,660 miles) long international border between the two countries. However, an obstacle or barrier, whether natural or man-made, has no obstacle value unless it is manned at regular intervals and covered by fire. You cannot man and cover by fire an obstacle as lengthy as the Pak-Afghan border barrier. Any attempt to do so would result in the creation of another military line, this time along Pakistan’s western border. There already exists the LoC between India and Pakistan in the contentious region of Jammu& Kashmir. India is using border areas of Afghanistan and Iran as staging areas for launching covert operations against Pakistan. Since the 1990s, India has tried to outflank Pakistan and open up a route to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Indian designs cannot materialize unless they destabilize Pakistan like in 1971.

To squarely face the  challenges highlighted above, Pakistan needs to take the following measures: - 

 1. Political will, where politics are not mixed up with business interests, should be the order of the day.

2. Understand that there are no quick fixes to the Pak-Afghan border problem.

3. Avoid confrontation with India, but keep its powder dry.

3. Pakistan should look inward for the most part of the 21st Century and consolidate itself, even as the Japanese did after Commodore Perry‘s blockade of Tokyo Bay on 8th July 1853. It was only after building up its industrial and military power that Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. Japan was defeated during WW2 because at that time America was the sole nuclear power. 

Saleem Akhtar Malik

12 January 2024