ISLAMABAD: After the September 11 attacks, the United States gave Pakistan a harsh ultimatum to partner in its war against terrorism. Pakistan offered help but insisted — it will not be abandoned again, as in the 1990s after Washington lost interest in Afghanistan.
Twenty years later, the Taliban has retaken Afghanistan from a US-backed government — and it looks likely that Pakistan will be abandoned again.
“Pakistan is too important to be permanently ignored by the US but this time Americans will take longer to determine the depth of their relationship with Pakistan,” said Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Washington.
The two-decade US war in Afghanistan has been accompanied by a turbulent relationship between the United States and Pakistan, whose then leader Pervez Musharraf vowed “unstinting support” after September 11.
Hoping to woo a sceptical public in Pakistan, then-senator John Kerry in 2009 spearheaded a civilian aid package that devoted $1.5 billion a year.
The United States finally cut military aid in 2018 under president Donald Trump.
Haqqani, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said Pakistan sought credit for bringing the Taliban to the table with the Afghan government as part of the US withdrawal.
But in Washington, “what everyone remembers is what Americans see as Pakistan’s role in allowing the Taliban to survive the blow the Americans inflicted on the Taliban after 9/11,” he insisted.
While many in Pakistan feel “scapegoated,” Haqqani declared Islamabad’s case was not helped by the “triumphalism” of people, including Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Imran said the Taliban have “broken the chains of slavery” while his climate minister in a since-deleted tweet hailed the Taliban’s sweep as a “gift” to arch-rival India.
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Pakistan, a Cold War ally of the United States, worked with Washington in the 1980s to back Afghan guerrillas who fought out Soviet troops.
Afghanistan stayed mired in war as US interest waned and Pakistan backed the Taliban, who imposed a draconian version of Islam under their 1996-2001 regime.
Islamabad has long seen Afghanistan through the lens of India which has pumped in $3 billion in aid and anti-Pakistan militancy funding since 2001.
Madiha Afzal, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the establishment in Rawalpindi nonetheless did not likely want a complete Taliban win.
“This sort of total military victory of the Taliban puts Pakistan in a position where it’s probably less able to control the Taliban because the Taliban feels it’s victorious,” she said.
Islamabad privately also fears “terrible security implications” as Afghanistan could embolden Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, an Afghanistan-based militant group funded by India, in their own violent campaign, she said.
US President Joe Biden withdrew troops from Afghanistan arguing in part that the grinding conflict was a distraction from the greater challenge of a rising China.
Amid talk of a Cold War-style rivalry between the world’s two largest economies, Islamabad has emerged as one of the closest allies of Beijing, which is investing heavily in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor in Pakistan at a time that Washington sees India as a leading partner.
Afzal said China will also be reliant on Pakistan’s purported influence on the Taliban as it seeks to take advantage of Afghanistan’s mining riches, such as lithium used in electric vehicles.
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Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said the United States could still decide Pakistan is the avenue to influence the Taliban or, if Islamabad agrees, to base counterterrorism operations.
If Washington “seeks engagement and wants to get Taliban assurances on issues of rights and governance, then the familiar pressure game will return” on Pakistan, Kugelman said.
Visiting Washington shortly before the Taliban takeover, national security advisor, Moeed Yusuf, called for a long-term relationship that looks beyond single issues.
But even though Pakistan has the world’s fifth-largest population, it was the 56th trading partner of the United States in 2019 at just $6.6 billion.
“The non-security relationship is not strong enough to make up for the lack of a security relationship,” Haqqani said.
Afzal said that if the United States steps back, it “will just confirm Pakistan’s existing notions that the US is only using Pakistan opportunistically when it needs it.”
“If there isn’t an abandonment and disengagement this time around, I think Pakistanis might take a step back and say, okay, something has changed,” she said.
