We knew it. We talked about it. We debated it in all its multiple facets. We were aware that we would not be able to escape the consequences of our daring because those vested with power have neither the capacity to understand nor the grace to brook opposition to their dominant authority. They don’t want to be challenged because they construe it as weakness in their arsenal. Reprisals were bound to come: scapegoat Pakistan, cricket, FATF, IMF, et al.
But continuation of conflict in the neighbourhood had yielded a harrowing impact which had to be addressed. We did not want to forever roast in the cauldron of war and fratricide. We did not want to be burnt in the avalanche of hate. We did not want to be washed away in the ferocity of raging currents. We could not resign our fate to the vile machinations of others for whom peace was not a preferred option because they are located far away from the theatre of a war which had dragged on for over 40 years, carving indelible marks on the battleground generations. They longed for peace in their midst and around them so that they and their future generations could look forward to growing up in an environment which was not afflicted by death and destruction.
In his groundbreaking address to the United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister Khan called upon the world community not to let Afghanistan lapse into a humanitarian crisis which is looming. It needs international support. Instead of persisting as adversaries in conflict, it is time to become partners in peace. It is also time to leave the past behind!
Someone had to gather the courage. Someone had to take up the challenge. Someone had to raise a voice because war was impacting the regional countries without respite.
Through 40 years of unending conflict, only the perpetrators had changed. The poor people had continued to suffer its ravages and pain. They had been denuded of their hope. They were deprived of their basic needs. They had no schools to send their children to. They had no health facilities to tend their sick and enfeebled. They did not have any opportunities to improve the condition of their lives. For them, life was reduced to an unending struggle to survive among the ruins of a war that seemed like going on to eternity. There was no future. There was only today which had to be endured with all its pain and suffering. Life with its calamitous manifestations was upon them with a lingering fear that it could be blown away in the raging madness of someone with a suicide jacket strapped around his waist.
That is not all. For 20 long years, the Afghans suffered the ‘democracy’ experiment which inducted vagrants like Karzai and Ghani to the coveted Kabul throne where they guilefully indulged in improving their personal lots. In the process, they endangered the basic survival of the impoverished millions of their people. They raised an army of over 300,000 soldiers, trained them in the techniques of modern warfare and equipped them with the latest sophisticated weaponry. But when the onslaught came, they virtually melted away into the dark for the Taliban to walk through to Kabul without firing a bullet. While Afghanistan was actually coming apart, a false perception of things being fine was elaborately perpetuated.
It is all there in the Afghanistan Papers titled “At War With The Truth”, a 2,000-page compilation that was published by the Washington Post after a three-year legal battle with the authorities. Those who were interviewed alleged that the “war fighting strategies were fatally flawed and that Washington wasted enormous amounts of money trying to remake Afghanistan into a modern nation”. Some others described explicit efforts by the United States government to “deliberately mislead the public”. They went on to allege that “it was common at military headquarters in Kabul, and at the White House, to distort statistics to make it appear the US was winning the war when that was not the case”.
There was rampant confusion about the objectives of the war inside the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department: “Some US officials wanted to use the war to turn Afghanistan into a democracy. Others wanted to transform Afghan culture and elevate women’s rights. Still others wanted to reshape the regional balance of power among Pakistan, India, Iran and Russia”. It appeared that they wanted to create a brand new country from the ruins of the one that existed – and all this against the tribal, cultural and social traditions of a people which were deeply ingrained in their psyche.
It is estimated that 90vpercen of what the US spent in Afghanistan was overkill: “We lost objectivity. We were given money, told to spend it and we did, without reason”. This bred corruption which “self-organised into a kleptocracy”, but the US officials failed to recognise the lethal threat it posed to their strategy– if they had one at all!
Ryan Crocker, who was the US ambassador in Kabul in 2002 and again from 2011 to 2012, stated it candidly: “The biggest single project, sadly and inadvertently, may have been the development of corruption. Once it gets to the level I saw, when I was out there, it is somewhere between unbelievably hard and outright impossible to fix”. And who benefitted from this? They were among the very leadership that the USA manoeuvred to be ‘elected’ through a fraudulent process which, actually, became a butt of caustic sarcasm.
And then the USA decided to leave. It signed a deal with the Taliban (whom they refuse to recognise now!) that, in exchange for their commitment not to allow the Afghan soil to be used for any terrorist activity, it would withdraw its troops from the country. It even gave a timeline for this. Originally, it was May 31 which was later extended to August 31 by the Biden Administration. They did so because they were convinced that they had created a formidable Afghan force that would not allow the Taliban to take over. terf
Like all their other projections in Afghanistan, this, too, proved to be a gross fallacy. When the time came, the Afghan forces were nowhere to be found. It was a walkover for the Taliban and, within days, they were knocking at the gates of Kabul. That led to incomparable chaotic scenes at the airport where the whole city surged in a bid to find a seat on their way out of the country. When the last plane flew out of Kabul airport, there were still thousands who remained stranded. Among others, Pakistan was at the forefront of helping out in the evacuation efforts. It received widespread praise for its leadership role in extending support to all those countries and organisations which had people left behind.
Then the Taliban walked in and took over the last unconquered post – Kabul. They were again the masters of the fate of Afghanistan like they were back in 2001 when the USA launched the assault after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. What remains to be seen is how differently the Taliban govern this time as compared to when they were last in power.
In the meanwhile, Pakistan gets the flack for telling the world early on that war will not deliver a solution to the Afghan crisis. Only a dialogue will, which is exactly the way it happened in the end. But the US and some other countries of the world, unwilling to acknowledge their retreat, are looking for a scapegoat. So, Pakistan continues to bear the brunt of the pain of unfulfilled ambitions and the embarrassment of failure of those who wanted to change Afghanistan, but could not.
Imran Khan was the sole voice of reason 15 years ago when he advocated dialogue with the Taliban. As Prime Minister of Pakistan, he remains committed to the very same interactive process to address the outstanding issues of human rights and inclusivity of the new Afghan government. War was not an option then. War is not an option now. Redemption will come by forging a partnership rooted in the inevitability of peace.
In his groundbreaking address to the United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister Khan called upon the world community not to let Afghanistan lapse into a humanitarian crisis which is looming. It needs international support. Instead of persisting as adversaries in conflict, it is time to become partners in peace. It is also time to leave the past behind!
