| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan |
| Taliban offensive |
| 2016-04-20 |
| [DAWN] A MAJOR bombing in Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the Worldand didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... with scores of casualties is an early warning that this year’s fighting season in Afghanistan may be the bloodiest and most devastating yet. With peace talks already stuttering as the Quadrilateral Coordination Group scrambles to smooth over growing disagreements between the Afghan and Pak sides, a full-blown crisis may be brewing. Unhappily, none of the three major state actors, Afghanistan, Pakistain and the US, appear to have a clear sense of how to proceed. The US seems to drift between disengagement and ad hoc diplomacy, such as when Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... visited Kabul recently to press the national unity government to show some unity and focus on governing. Meanwhile, ...back at the barn, Bossy was furiously chewing her cud and thinking... the Afghan government seems determined to prove that it can make a bad situation worse by endlessly feuding within. As for Pakistain, despite nudging the Afghan Taliban to the negotiation table, there appears to be a strange complacency in official quarters about the possibility of Afghanistan imploding. Perhaps the fourth side in the QCG, China, could be more assertive in using its influence. But Chinese foreign policy interventions are notoriously opaque and difficult to predict. As ever, the focus may well come down to managing tensions in the near term. The Afghan government views attacks in Kabul as a red line of sorts and tends to ramp up the belligerence towards Pakistain whenever the Afghan capital is struck by the Taliban. With the annual fighting season already fierce and widespread and political gridlock in Kabul likely to continue, Pakistain may become a convenient scapegoat. Ill-advised as many of the Afghan government’s verbal attacks on Pakistain may be, perhaps there is a need for Pak policymakers to work harder to achieve the long-term peace and stability that all state actors claim they want. The reluctance of the Taliban to talk to the Afghan government may be rooted in power struggles within the Taliban, but what is in the latter’s interest is not necessarily in Pakistain’s. |
| Posted by:Fred |