Karzai's 'Odes to Pakistan' Come Too Late to Stop India
"Karzai's
recent outpourings are pleasing to Pakistani ears, but his odes to Pakistan
will be of no avail now, as Pakistan is itself becoming a victim of Obama's
Af-Pak strategy. In this scheme, both Pakistan and Afghanistan figure only as
foot soldiers, with India occupying the seat of full American partner in the
region."
Pakistan says troops are closing in on a key Taliban-held town in the North-West Frontier Province Pakistan's anti-Taliban offensive has displaced nearly a million people, according to the U.S.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's
recent outpourings please Pakistani ears, but his melody comes
too late in the day and after much water has flowed under the bridge.
Had he indeed been sincerely friendly toward Pakistan, our joint concerted endeavors might have succeeded in pacifying war-torn Afghanistan and
curbing the monstrous extremism that blights both countries so horrifically.
His Pashtun ethnicity would have stood him in good stead in
bringing peace to Afghanistan's restive south and east, the community strongholds
from which the Taliban draw their main support and are now insurmountably
entrenched.
Yet Karzai fell thrall to the
Americans, played surrogate to his Northern Alliance allies and took the path
of hostility and animosity toward Pakistan. Though mouthing pious vows toward Pakistan,
he kept a dagger in his cloak to stab it right through. Invariably, he rewarded
Pakistan's sincerity with deceit. He continues to haul Pakistan over the coals
at his American masters' wink. He was never loath to swat Pakistan right, left
and center at the behest of his Northern Alliance allies, and never paused to wonder
if perhaps they were taking him for a ride as well.
[Editor's Note: The Northern
Alliance, which drove the Taliban from power with American backing in 2001,
is made up of at least six factions that contain Shiites, Persian-speaking
Tajiks, Pashtuns and Uzbeks, among others.]
The non-Pashtuns that make up
this alliance eventually came to occupy dominant positions in Afghanistan's
power structure, albeit courtesy of the American conquerors in reward for
services these non-Pashtuns rendered them in toppling the Taliban and occupying
a country traditionally ruled by its Pashtun majority or their appointees. And
if to maintain the Alliance, Karzai kept his ethnic Pashtun majority at bay within
the country's power structure, he kept Afghan relations with Pakistan turbulent
at its behest as well.
For example, he could not be
unaware of the Alliance's chumminess with India. Nor could he be oblivious to the
Alliance's machinations to strategically embed India within Afghanistan - to
the detriment of Pakistan's compelling security interests. Yet he didn't so
much as bat an eyelash at this scheming against Pakistan. And he became an
acquiescent participant, if not an active one, in the plots hatched by Alliance-dominated
Afghan intelligence in collusion with the CIA, RAW [India's
Research and Analysis Wing' and the Mossad [Israeli Intelligence] to
hurt and destabilize Pakistan.
Neither could he be ignorant of
the anti-Pakistan activities of dissidents from Baluchistan holed
up in safe havens in Afghanistan [Baluchistan is a
restive part of both Pakistan and Afghanistan. This newspaper is published in Quetta, capital of Pakistani Baluchistan]. Yet when confronted with these inimical
activities occurring in his country, he manages to keeps a straight, while impudently
and churlishly demonizing Pakistan. This really hurts, coming from a man who
couldn't be ignorant of the tremendous sacrifices Pakistan has made for
Afghanistan - and the immense suffering it has been borne in its interests.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Although before becoming
president, Karzai had only a secondary role in the Afghan-jihadi power structure,
he knows full well how Pakistan stuck out its neck out during the vacation of
the Soviet aggressor in Afghanistan - and at great risk to its own security.
India, he must not have forgotten, was staunchly on the Soviet side. And just as
it then struggled desperately to overcome the fallout of that involvement, Pakistan
now finds itself in the perilous and bristling minefield of yet another
pacification campaign there - once again thanklessly.
PORODY - AUTO-TUNE THE NEWS: POLITICS, AF-PAK TIES AND CUBA
Nonetheless, if Afghanistan's
predominantly Pashtun South and East are under the resurgent Taliban's thumb, Karzai
has only himself to blame. He never understood that the Northern Alliance, for
vested political reasons, would very much want these Pashtun regions to be in a
perpetual state of disturbance. That way, the non-Pashtun supremacy in the
existing power structure would go unchallenged. Similarly, its Indian friends want
the Pashtuns to stay sidelined, since the existing status quo serves India
well.
By sheer quirk of
circumstances, Karzai may recapture the presidency in the August polls. For the
present, he looks to be a shoo-in, as no formidable contender has yet emerged.
But he will remain a lame duck, as the Obama Administration is quite averse to
him and will find ways to bypass him. By every measure, Hamid Karzai has burned
all his boats. So his odes to Pakistan will be of no avail now, as Pakistan
itself is becoming a victim of Obama's Af-Pak strategy. In this scheme, both
Pakistan and Afghanistan figure only as foot soldiers, with India occupying the
seat of full American partner in the region.
