US pushes for Pakistan's Central Role in Afghanistan - Ehsan Azari

This is US’s strategic mistake to impose a Pakistan-centric solution to Afghan tragedy. Pakistan is by no mean to play any constructive role in Afghanistan, for it is a country which is facing an existential threat from within. Pakistani ruling elite has no other choice but to affirm continuously the existence of Pakistan by an imaginary enmity with India and a dream of controlling Afghanistan.

The one billion unpaid US reimbursements for fighting the Pakistani Taliban would also begin flowing. In addition, Pakistan will receive defence supplies in the coming years, P-30 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, five 250 TOW anti-armour missile systems, six AN/TPS-77 surveillance radar, six C-130E transport aircraft, and 20 AH-1F Cobra attack helicopters and new F-16 with higher speed fighter jets and naval frigates. The wish-list also included Pakistan’s plea for a civilian nuclear deal like the US concluded with India.

This is indeed a great victory for Pakistan to be on central player in Afghanistan, a role it played with horrible consequences in the 1990s: the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the al-Qaida terrorist network that successfully staged 9/11 and other terrorist attacks in the West and the ongoing endless war in Afghanistan, are among the problems caused by Pakistan’s three decades misadventures in Afghanistan.
US pushes for Pakistan's Central Role in Afghanistan‎.

Pakistan has a history of undertaking some tactical combat operations including mock operations against selective groupings within the Taliban insurgency in order to attract US policy makers to increase the cash flow. It has now become clear that those recent arrest of the Taliban leaders were also designed in order to punish those Taliban who enter into negotiation in Kabul bypassing Pakistan. According to Financial Times (March 19), Kai Edie, ex-UN special representative to Afghanistan, accused Pakistan of sabotaging the UN clandestine discussions with senior Taliban leaders. Pakistan never chooses to harm those Taliban who are Pakistani military strategic partners and always relies on their support.

The ISI is a Pakistani complex visible and invisible intelligence conglomerates. There is an ISI within an ISI. That ghostly ISI remains invisible and most of its members are retired generals who deviously play the real Afghan game from behind the scene. Their activities remain a top Pakistani secret. When I want to update my knowledge of Pakistan’s policy vis-à-vis the Taliban, I am going to look for the latest statements by retired ISI generals instead of official statements by Pakistan’s prime minister or foreign minister.

Before the battle in Swat Valley which started in early 2009, a peace agreement between the Taliban and Pakistani military was waiting for Zardari’s approval. The Pakistani Taliban in Swat insisted that they don’t need Zardai’s signature as long as the ISI is officially endorsing the agreement.

On March 29, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Mr Shah Mahmood Qureshi boasted in an interview to Newsweek that Pakistan has, “eliminated 17,000 terrorists.” “The myth was that,” he added about Pakistan’s military success in South Waziristan, “it had never been occupied by any force and that it was impossible to do it. We have done it.” In Pakistani thinking Pashtun Northwest Frontier Province — formally renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa last week— is still a colony.

Pakistan’s double game in war on terrorism, fighting those who are dangerous to its state security and those who disobey, while offering clandestine support to the most virulent Anti-Western extremists among the Afghan Taliban, is designed to trap the US into a vicious circle of a bunch of Taliban in exchange for bags of cash and weapons. This so-called strategic dialogue has a strong sense of déjà vu about it. Is this the last bargain?

US pushes for Pakistan's Central Role in Afghanistan‎ - Media Monitors Network
The great US foreign policy flaw‎ - The Guardian