By Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan
By virtue of Pakistan being the neighbor of Afghanistan, having a 2600KM long common border, sharing the mountains and rivers, culture, traditions, history, religion, ethnicity, language, etc. Pakistan cannot afford eternal unrest and instability in Afghanistan.
The four decades-long war and unrest has an adverse impact on Pakistan. Pakistan is a country which desires a stable and strong Afghanistan. In fact, it is not only Pakistan, but the whole region has suffered badly. The war in Afghanistan has pushed the whole region into chaos and poverty. However, the people of Afghanistan are not the people of lesser God, after having three or four generations in war, they deserve peace and prosperity. The international community has the moral responsibility to extend a helping hand to stabilize the devastated nation.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that Pakistan must not be blamed for the outcome of the war in Afghanistan and the losses of the United States and stressed setting eyes on the future to avoid another conflict instead of sticking with the blame game.
“Today, with Afghanistan at another crossroads, we must look to the future to prevent another violent conflict in that country rather than perpetuating the blame game of the past,” he said in his article published in the Washington Post on Monday.
Imran Khan said surely, Pakistan was not to blame for the fact that “300,000-plus well-trained and equipped Afghan security forces saw no reason to fight the lightly-armed Taliban”.
The underlying problem, he said, was an Afghan government structure lacking legitimacy in the eyes of the average Afghan. He also expressed “surprise” over the recent Congressional hearings on Afghanistan, where “no mention was made of Pakistan’s sacrifices as a U.S. ally in the war on terror for over two decades”.
“Instead, we were blamed for America’s loss,” he added. Khan recalled that since 2001, he repeatedly warned that the “Afghan war was unwinnable” and pointed out that given their history, Afghans would never accept a protracted foreign military presence.
Even an outsider including Pakistan could not change this reality, he added. The prime minister said, unfortunately, the successive Pakistani governments after 9/11 sought to please the U.S. instead of pointing out the error of a military-dominated approach.
“Desperate for global relevance and domestic legitimacy, Pakistan’s military dictator Pervez Musharraf agreed to every American demand for military support after 9/11. This cost Pakistan, and the U.S., dearly,” he said. Imran Khan said the people the U.S. asked Pakistan to target, included the groups trained jointly by the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
“Back then, the Afghans were hailed as freedom fighters performing a sacred duty. President Reagan even entertained the mujahideen at the White House” he said. The prime minister pointed out that after the defeat of the Soviets, the U.S. abandoned Afghanistan and sanctioned Pakistan, leaving behind over five million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and a bloody civil war in Afghanistan.
“From this security vacuum emerged the Taliban, many born and educated in the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan” he said. Post 9/11, he said, the U.S. needed Pakistan again, “but this time against the very actors we had jointly supported to fight foreign occupation”.
He mentioned that the Mujahideen of the past were declared terrorists overnight, adding that militant groups declared war against the Pakistani state after Pakistan supported the U.S. war on terror.
Peace and stability mean to save 40 million Afghans and promote healthy economic activities in the whole region. Afghanistan is situated on vital trade routes connecting many countries, regions, and continents in the world. The whole region will be developed and prosper if sustainable and permanent peace is achieved in Afghanistan.
It is time to implement the peace deal agreed upon between the US and the Taliban in February 2020: unfreeze the Afghan assets, remove the Taliban from the terrorist list, extend economic assistance to Afghanistan, reconstruct the war damages. Catastrophe in any part of the world should be averted, especially, when it is man-made due to a certain country or nation deliberately. Human lives are precious, and should respect humanity irrespective of any bias.
Author: Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan – Sinologist (ex-Diplomat), Editor, Analyst, Non-Resident Fellow of CCG (Center for China and Globalization), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan.
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are only of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinion or position of World Geostrategic Insights).