Page 2 of 2 All roads leading to
Pakistan By M K Bhadrakumar
phenomenon are also linked to
India-Pakistan differences over Kashmir and to
wider India-Pakistan relations. He implied that
India manipulated Afghanistan "to see a Pakistan
weakened and distracted by frontier problems" on
its western border, and under this compulsion,
Pakistan "welcomed the Taliban as they were
religious fundamentalists, not Pashtun
nationalists, and therefore had no claim on
Pakistani territory". The solution lies in
"encouraging" India to reduce its presence in
Afghanistan. Second, Rifkind said, the Kabul
government must be made to
accept the Durand Line as the
border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
But Musharraf's wish list may not
necessarily be so modest. He knows Zia drove a
hard bargain in comparable circumstances.
Musharraf can flag that the role he is about to
play in US regional policy is fraught with risks.
It could pitch Pakistan into a standoff with major
countries in the region. Conceivably, Musharraf's
list would include the establishment of a
government in Kabul over which Pakistan has
predominant influence. It is not important how he
rationalizes such a claim. What matters is how to
reconcile Pakistani aspirations with a
Western-oriented setup in Kabul. There has to be
give-and-take on both sides. But, fortunately for
the Anglo-American alliance and for Pakistan, this
is within the realm of possibility.
The
Taliban are not a monolithic movement. Apart from
one or two countries that may doggedly view the
Taliban in one-dimensional terms, it is well
understood that "Taliban" is a generic word. It
refers to a broad range of discontented and
dispossessed Afghan people; it includes people who
have vested interests; it includes time-servers
and opportunists amenable to manipulation by
foreigners; it does include elements wedded to
violence as a method of political expression; and
it no doubt contains a small segment of
ideologically committed warriors and a large swath
of observant Muslims.
Also, the people who
hold power and the people who lead the movement
behind the scenes are not necessarily the same.
The Taliban have a composite leadership. Besides,
a mystique has always been carefully built around
the Talibs ever since they came out of the
madrassas in Pakistan in the autumn of
1994, which allows shadow plays to be staged in
their name, almost ad infinitum. Clearly, this
extraordinary set of circumstances poses a
challenge and an opportunity for all outside
protagonists interested in "finessing" the
Taliban.
The Anglo-American camp will
remain vigilant, of course, while trusting
Pakistani instincts. Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) is immensely endowed with the
expertise to chaff the grain from the husk. Its
Afghan cell was highly skilled in playing
disparate, freewheeling, unruly, violent, moody
and ideologically fired-up elements of the Afghan
mujahideen like puppets on a string. It is capable
of weaning the Taliban and inserting them into
Kabul as a "responsible" stakeholder.
In
all likelihood such an effort is on. Hardcore
Taliban commanders like Mullah Dadullah may be
incrementally eliminated. "Burned-out" figures
like Jalaluddin Haqqani may be pulled back from
the arena. What is abundantly clear is that
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is rising into prominence once
again. He was the ISI's favorite proxy during the
Afghan jihad in the 1980s, and almost until the
mid-1990s, when it began viewing the Taliban as a
trump card.
The ISI would be justified in
putting Hekmatyar on the comeback trail. He has
impeccable "jihadi" credentials, yet he is a
politician first and last. He has a strong power
base among the Ghilzai Pashtun tribes of eastern
Afghanistan. He is a ruthless practitioner of
power. The curtain has come down on his peers
among the original "Peshawar Seven".
The
ISI could count on Hekmatyar to build bridges with
the Northern Alliance groups and even with the
Jamiat-i-Islami leadership that could isolate the
erstwhile Shura-e Nazar, which Pakistan regarded
with suspicion as "pro-India". The Shura-e Nazar
was a federation of military forces led by various
mujahideen commanders, mostly from the north and
northeast of Afghanistan.
No doubt,
Hekmatyar was an unhappy man during his period of
exile at the time of Taliban rule from mid-1996
until the end of 2001, when the ISI didn't want
him either in Pakistan or in Afghanistan. But he
remains profoundly loyal to Islamabad for
meticulously plotting his political career ever
since he fled Kabul in 1974 for Pakistan as a
militant university student. Equally, it is of no
mean consequence to the ISI that Hekmatyar has
been stridently "anti-Indian".
Above all,
Hekmatyar has supporters among top retired
Pakistani generals. Musharraf will be a net
gainer, too, if the Islamic parties, which kept
strong links with Hekmatyar (and the Taliban),
especially the Jamaat-i-Islami led by Qazi Hussein
Ahmed, do not consort with former prime minister
Nawaz Sharif on a staunchly nationalistic
platform. Washington would see the rationale.
After all, the forces of Islam could have strange
uses. It all depends on how to harness them.
But how would Washington handle Hekmatyar?
Technically, he remains a "terrorist" in the US
lexicon. But Hekmatyar's "anti-Americanism" and
Washington's antipathy toward him all along have
seemed a little too contrived. US intelligence
looked away when Zia diverted to Hekmatyar the
bulk of the US arms supplies meant for the Afghan
mujahideen. Hekmatyar's "Saudi connection" must
also be a matter of comfort for Washington.
From Washington's perspective, what might
tilt the balance in favor of Hekmatyar is his
visceral hatred toward Russia. From all accounts,
he was also bitter about his humiliating expulsion
by his Iranian hosts in 2002. He could be an
eligible figure to hold the fort in Kabul if a
"new cold war" really begins.
M K
Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years,
with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan
(1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
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