Triumph of evil: Pakistan calls shots in Afghanistan

International relations are often bereft of morality, but in these politically correct times they are also without commonsense and reason. Nothing else explains the newfound assertiveness of Pakistan in matters as disparate as cricket and Afghanistan.
The Pakistanis have forced the Indian Premier League (IPL) to shun its unspoken no-Pak-player stand. In fact, they have made it appear as if the Pak cricketers have boycotted IPL! Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ejaz Butt has revoked the no-objection certificates granted to it players earlier. Butt said, “No Pakistan player will play in IPL this year. The insulting manner in which Pakistan players have been treated will not be tolerated.” Earlier, he had the temerity to seek “an apology from IPL.”
More dangerous and revolting is Islamabad’s audacity in matters related to Afghanistan. Worse, the audacity has paid rich dividends. The recent one-day international conference on Afghanistan on January 28 was testimony of Pakistan’s success in international politics. World powers were goaded to accept the oxymoronic concept of ‘good Taliban’ and buy peace with the barbarous thugs. For this purpose, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown—hosting the conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon—announced the setting up of a $500-million “trust fund.” A report in The Times Of India (January 29) said, “As a goodwill gesture, the conference was preceded by a lifting of United Nations sanctions on five leaders of the obscurantist Taliban regime, which was ousted by armed forces led by the United States after the 9/11 attack on New York by the Afghanistan-based Al Qaida. Among the beneficiaries is a former foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil.” It may be recalled that Muttawakil was a chum of the hijackers of IC-814. He is said to have helped them unload their baggage from the aircraft in Kandahar; he also negotiated on their behalf. He is among the once off the UN sanctions list to “facilitate” the reconciliation.
Needless to say, Pakistan is the chief supporter and beneficiary of the treacherous concept of good Taliban. In an interview to a British daily, its Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said, “Pakistan is perhaps better placed than any other country in the world to support Afghan reintegration and reconciliation.” Of course, “Afghan reintegration and reconciliation” will resuscitate the cronies of Mullah Omar, the uncrowned Caliph of Afghanistan before the George Bush-led US ousted them from Kabul.
According to the TOI report, External Affairs Minister S.M. “Krishna was allocated a seat in the second of three rows of attendees at the conference which in itself reflected India's peripheral role in Afghan affairs in the eyes of the international community. This, despite India being the biggest regional aid-giver to Afghanistan, with a commitment of $1.3 million. Earlier in the week, Turkey, an ally of Pakistan, did not even bother to invite India to a confabulation on Afghanistan.”
Pakistan—which is the cause of much of misery of Afghans (and of others)—is calling the shots. Even literally. It has reported told the Americans that it would not tolerate India’s bigger role in Pashtun areas like Kandahar and Jalalabad and in the rest of the country. Islamabad likes to say that only Afghanistan’s “contiguous neighbors” can be allowed to participate in any “regional” mechanism. Pakistani newspapers have reported that the Pakistan army and the ISI have decided that only they would decide on the Afghan matters.
Notice the irony and the tragedy. The good work India has done in reconstruction in the war-torn nation is globally acknowledged. A recent study commissioned by three major Western—a British, an American and a German—broadcasters found that 71 per cent of the Afghan population favored a big role by India. Yet, India has little role to play today in Afghanistan.
The facts hint at a Sadean comedy in which evil triumphs and good is vanquished. The wide world knows Pakistan’s nefarious role in creating, nurturing, and arming the Taliban, aiding and abetting terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, and supporting al-Qaeda. Among others, President A.A. Zardari and his predecessor, Gen Pervez Musharraf, have admitted to government assistance to jihadis. Yet, it gets rewarded for felony and duplicity.
I wonder what happened to the multi-pronged war on terror that the US has wage for over eight years. Why couldn’t the world’s mightiest nation, which has the support of almost all other countries in this endeavor, check the flow of money and arms to the jihadis? Is it some conspiracy of cosmic proportions, funded by petrodollars? And is that funding even more powerful than the military prowess and political clout of the world’s wealthiest nation? Such stuff seems straight from a Robert Ludlum novel, but this could be true. After all, truth is often stranger than fiction.