{"id":2789,"date":"2021-04-15T22:52:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-15T17:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ziaurrehman.media\/?p=2789"},"modified":"2021-04-15T22:52:00","modified_gmt":"2021-04-15T17:52:00","slug":"in-bidens-afghan-withdrawal-a-victory-for-pakistan-but-at-what-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/15\/in-bidens-afghan-withdrawal-a-victory-for-pakistan-but-at-what-cost\/","title":{"rendered":"In Biden\u2019s Afghan Withdrawal, A Victory for Pakistan. But at What Cost?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pakistan\u2019s military intelligence stayed allied to both the Americans and Taliban through the war. But now Pakistan may face intensified extremism and chaos at home as a result of a perceived Taliban victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By Mujib Mashal, Salman Masood and Zia ur-Rehman<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed wp-block-embed-embed\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-thenewyorktimes\"><iframe title=\"Biden\u2019s Afghan Pullout Is a Victory for Pakistan. But at What Cost?\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/svc\/oembed\/html\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2021%2F04%2F15%2Fworld%2Fasia%2Fpakistan-afghanistan-withdrawal.html\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none;max-width:500px;min-width:300px;min-height:550px;display:block;width:100%;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">April 15, 2021, 1:44 p.m. ET<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Near the peak of the American war in Afghanistan, a former chief of neighboring Pakistan\u2019s military intelligence \u2014 an institution allied both to the U.S. military and to its Taliban adversaries \u2014 came on a talk show called Joke Night in 2014 to put a bold prediction on the record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhen history is written,\u201d declared&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/08\/17\/world\/asia\/hamid-gul-pakistans-former-spy-chief-dies-at-78.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Gen. Hamid Gul<\/a>, who led the feared spy service known as the I.S.I. during the last stretch of the Cold War in the 1980s, \u201cit will be stated that the I.S.I. defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan with the help of America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThen there will be another sentence,\u201d General Gul added after a brief pause, delivering his punchline to loud applause, \u201cThe I.S.I., with the help of America, defeated America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In President&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/04\/14\/us\/politics\/biden-afghanistan-troop-withdrawal.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Biden\u2019s decision to withdraw all American forces<\/a>&nbsp;from Afghanistan by September, Pakistan\u2019s powerful military establishment finally gets its wish after decades of intrigue: the exit of a disruptive superpower from a backyard where it had established control through a friendly Taliban regime before the U.S. invaded in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A return of the Taliban to some form of power would dial the clock back to a time when Pakistan\u2019s military played gatekeeper to Afghanistan, perpetually working to block the influence of its archenemy, India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the Pakistani military\u2019s sheltering of the Taliban insurgency over the past two decades \u2014 obsessively pursuing a narrowly defined geopolitical victory next door \u2014 risks another wave of disruption at home. Pakistan is a fragile, nuclear-armed state already reeling from a crashed economy, waves of social unrest, and a percolating Islamic militancy of its own that it is struggling to contain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If Afghanistan descends into chaos, Pakistan is bound to feel the burden again just as it did after Afghanistan disintegrated following a Soviet withdrawal in the 1990s. Millions of Afghan refugees crossed the porous border to seek relative safety in Pakistani cities and towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And more: A Taliban return to power, either through a civil war or through a peace deal that gives them a share of the power, would only embolden the extremist movements in Pakistan who share the same source of ideological mentorship in the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/05\/04\/world\/asia\/04schools.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">thousands of religious seminaries<\/a>&nbsp;spread across Pakistan \u2014 and have shown no hesitation in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/11\/02\/world\/asia\/pakistan-blasphemy-asia-bibi.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">antagonizing the country\u2019s government<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Pakistan\u2019s military played a dangerous game of supporting good militants abroad and containing extremists at home, the country\u2019s Islamist movements found a rallying cause in the presence of an invading foreign force next door, openly fund-raising for and cheering on their Afghan classmates. New extremist groups kept shrinking the civil society space in Pakistan \u2014 often targeting intellectuals and professionals for abuse or attack \u2014 and even found sympathizers in the ranks of Pakistan\u2019s security forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2021\/04\/15\/world\/15pakistan3\/merlin_185206791_2728e316-0218-4268-858d-7b4305205dbe-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa, a research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies , said Pakistani generals have resorted to a mix of force and appeasement in tackling the country\u2019s own growing militancy problem. But a strategy for countering the spread of extremism has been elusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt scares me, it scares me,\u201d Dr. Siddiqa said. \u201cOnce the Taliban come back, that should trouble the Pakistani government, or any government. It will be inspiring for all the other groups.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Said Nazir, a retired brigadier and defense analyst in Islamabad, said Pakistan had \u201clearned some lessons\u201d from the blowback of past support to jihadist groups. The country would need to tread more cautiously in the endgame of the Afghan war \u2014 what another former senior military officer said was akin to walking on eggshells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cVictory will not be claimed by Pakistan, but tacitly Taliban will owe it to Pakistan,\u201d Mr. Nazir said. \u201cPakistan does fear the replay of past events and fears a bloody civil war and violence if hasty withdrawal and no political solution occur simultaneously.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From the moment of its birth as a country in 1947, Pakistan found itself surrounded by enemies. The new borders drawn up by British officials instantly mired Pakistan in a host of territorial disputes, including a serious one with Afghanistan, which still lays claim to what most of the world sees as Pakistan\u2019s northwestern regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was at the peak of the Cold War in the 1970s, as the Soviet Union pushed to expand its influence in South and Central Asia, that Pakistani leaders found a formula of deploying Islamist proxies they have stuck to ever since. The United States armed and financed the training of the Islamist mujahedeen insurgency that would defeat the Soviet Army in Afghanistan and topple the government it propped up. Pakistan\u2019s army, particularly its intelligence wing, would serve as the handler, host, and trainer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Through the ensuing civil war that broke out in the 1990s, Pakistani generals helped a younger group of fundamentalist fighters known as the Taliban sweep the fighting factions and establish a government over 90 percent of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But when the United States invaded in 2001 to chase Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda after their terrorist attacks on American soil, they also turned their sights on Pakistan\u2019s allies in Afghanistan, the ruling Taliban. Pakistan found itself in a difficult position. In the face of President Bush\u2019s threat of \u201cwith us or against us\u201d ultimatum to Pakistan, the country\u2019s military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharaf, reluctantly went along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The decision had an immediate blowback: Pakistan began facing attacks from its own militants, the Pakistani Taliban, for siding with the U.S. military campaign against their ideological brothers in Afghanistan. It took years of military operations that cost the lives of thousands of Pakistani forces, and displaced countless people in Pakistan\u2019s northwest, to quell the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But at the same time, Pakistan\u2019s military kept working to help the Afghan Taliban regroup as an insurgency to keep the United States in check. Even as American officials relied on Pakistani help to conduct the war and intelligence operations, some were&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/09\/23\/world\/asia\/mullen-asserts-pakistani-role-in-attack-on-us-embassy.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">openly bitter about the double role played by the I.S.I.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Pakistan\u2019s generals were also successful in making themselves indispensable to the United States \u2014 offering a nuclear-armed ally in a region where China, Russia, and Islamist militants all had interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Afghan government officials, meanwhile, were becoming increasingly distraught that their American allies were not coming down harder on Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On one trip to Afghanistan soon after becoming vice president in 2008, Mr. Biden was urged by President Hamid Karzai to pressure Pakistan into rooting out Taliban sanctuaries on its soil. Mr. Biden was reported to respond by saying that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/529288\/directorate-s-by-steve-coll\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pakistan was 50 times more important to the United States<\/a>&nbsp;than Afghanistan was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In recent years, as American officials sought a way to leave Afghanistan, they again had to turn to Pakistan \u2014 to pressure the Taliban to come to peace talks, and to lend help when the United States needed to move against Al Qaeda or the Islamic State affiliate in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With the U.S. intention to leave publicly declared, Pakistan did away with any semblance of denial that the Taliban leadership was sheltering there. Taliban leaders flew from Pakistani cities to engage in peace talks in Qatar. When negotiations reached delicate moments that required consultations with field commanders, they flew back to Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the United States finally signed a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban in February last year, the mood in some circles in Pakistan was one of open celebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pakistan\u2019s former defense minister, Khwaja Asif, who had repeatedly visited the halls of power in Washington as a U.S. ally, tweeted a photo of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meeting Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban deputy at the talks in Qatar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou might have might on your side, but God is with us,\u201d Mr. Asif said in the tweet, ending with a cry of victory. \u201cAllah u Aakbar!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But there are signs that extremist groups within Pakistan have already felt emboldened by the Americans\u2019 exit, giving a glimpse of the trouble likely to be in store for Pakistani officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The once-defeated Pakistani Taliban have increased their activities in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Ambushes against security forces have become more frequent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just how wide the problem of extremism might stretch has been on display in recent days on the streets of two of Pakistan\u2019s main cities, Lahore and Karachi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Supporters of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, a movement that sees itself as protecting Islam against blasphemy, thrashed uniformed members of Pakistani forces and took dozens hostage for hours. Videos emerged of Pakistani Army officers trying to reason with the violent protesters. Officials said two policemen had been killed, and 300 wounded. The showdown continues, as the government moved to ban the group as a terrorist outfit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe state was not able to control the stick-yielding and stone-hurling members of the T.L.P that paralyzed most parts of the country for two days,\u201d Afrasiab Khattak, a former chairman of Pakistan\u2019s human rights commission, said. \u201cHow will they handle trained, guns-carrying Taliban militants?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistan\u2019s military intelligence stayed allied to both the Americans and Taliban through the war. But now Pakistan may face intensified extremism and chaos at home as a result of a perceived Taliban victory. By Mujib Mashal, Salman Masood and Zia ur-Rehman April 15, 2021, 1:44 p.m. ET Near the peak of the American war in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1364,1361,27,1365],"tags":[939,1291],"class_list":["post-2789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afghan-migration","category-conflict-militancy","category-new-york-times","category-regional-geopolitics","tag-pakistan-in-afghanistan","tag-u-ss-exit-from-afghanistan-on-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}