Statements by Pakistan’s army chief Feb. 2 suggest that Islamabad is having to adjust its strategic objectives in Afghanistan. While the shift is still in its early stages, it suggests that U.S. and Pakistani views on the region are starting to align.
Analysis
Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani said Feb. 2 that when Pakistan wants Afghanistan to be in its strategic depth, this does not imply controlling Afghanistan. He added that “if Afghanistan is peaceful, stable and friendly, we have our strategic depth because our western border is secure.” Kayani then went on to say that Pakistan does not want a Talibanized Afghanistan, saying “we can’t wish for anything for Afghanistan that we don’t wish for ourselves.”
The statements — a first for a Pakistani leader — reveal an emerging shift in Islamabad’s thinking about Afghanistan and the Taliban.
Pakistan has long been interested in Afghan politics, as a key Pakistani strategic imperative is being the most influential player in Afghanistan. This is to help ensure that Pakistan is not surrounded by India on one side and a pro-New Delhi Afghan state on the other. After decades of trying to achieve this imperative, Pakistan finally succeeded when the Taliban came to power in the 1990s. This proved short-lived; after 9/11, Pakistan lost this influence — something Islamabad has sought to regain ever since. To do so, Islamabad had to balance maintaining influence over the Taliban against the need to ally with Washington in the jihadist war. But in the end, this proved to be a tightrope walk that was untenable, as the process led to the emergence of a Pakistani Taliban phenomenon.
STRATFOR has pointed for some time to Pakistan’s growing post-Sept. 11 strategic dilemma — namely, how can Islamabad balance a domestic policy of fighting its own Pakistani Taliban rebels against a foreign policy of maintaining influence in Afghanistan by supporting the Afghan Taliban? While the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban may divide into two neat categories on paper, ground realities are much messier. Having al Qaeda in the mix further muddies these waters. Ultimately, Pakistan failed at its balancing act. It lost control over the jihadist landscape within its own borders, which in turn undermined its ability to project power into Afghanistan.
Kayani’s statements highlight the manner in which Pakistan is trying to deal with this problem. The Pakistani army chief has hinted that Islamabad does not want to see Afghanistan be dominated by the Afghan Taliban. He did not, however, comment on the possibility that Pakistan could use its links with the Afghan Taliban to push it toward peace talks, which is a function of Islamabad not wanting to show its cards just yet and/or the dearth of such cards.
Pakistan’s shift away from wanting to see the Afghan Taliban dominate Afghanistan to supporting a more broad-based Afghan government in which the Taliban constitute a key component is significant. It stems from Pakistani fears that Taliban control of Afghanistan (which Pakistan saw as a good thing from the 1990s until only recently) could prove deadly to Pakistani security. Pakistan now has decided that the best way to check Indian influence in Afghanistan — which has grown considerably over the past eight years — is to forge ties beyond the Taliban, and even beyond the Pashtun community.
This shift is still very much in the making, and will doubtless face resistance in Pakistan. While the leadership of the army-intelligence establishment has come to terms of the need for the shift, it will be a while before the establishment as a whole embraces the new approach. If successful, the shift could bring the U.S. and Pakistani regional calculus closer.
The discrepancy between Islamabad’s good-versus-bad Taliban and Washington’s reconcilable-versus-irreconcilable Taliban has long been obvious to STRATFOR. Islamabad’s incipient embrace of the idea that a Talibanized Afghanistan is not in Pakistani interests indicates that the U.S.-Pakistani divide on the Taliban could be lessened. Kayani alluded as much when he said that the world could help the process by having “a proper understanding” of Pakistan’s concerns and issues, adding that the United States and other nations have only a short-term interest in Afghanistan, while for Pakistan, the war in Afghanistan “is our war and not the U.S. war.” In other words, geography will allow the United States to forget about Afghanistan in a few years time — an option Pakistan lacks.
Ultimately, Pakistan now appears ready to settle for less than it originally sought in Afghanistan. Rather than seeking to be the lead player in Afghanistan, Islamabad will settle for an Afghan regime that does not threaten its security and other interests, similar to how the Iranians ultimately settled for less in Iraq once they accepted that Iraq was not about to fall in their lap after the U.S. invasion.
