{"id":64985,"date":"2021-06-09T11:00:06","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T01:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=64985"},"modified":"2021-06-09T10:25:26","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T00:25:26","slug":"pakistans-taliban-monster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/pakistans-taliban-monster\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan\u2019s Taliban monster"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

The late head of Pakistan\u2019s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, was fond of boasting that when Afghanistan\u2019s history came to be written, it would record that the ISI, with the help of America, defeated the Soviet Union. And next, he would slyly add, historians would state that the ISI, with the help of America, defeated America.<\/p>\n

Gul\u2019s boast was not the sort of empty rodomontade that military men are notorious for once they hang up their uniforms and recall their past as being more glorious than the details might warrant. He was right to argue that it was the ISI\u2019s tactic of sponsoring militants and terrorists\u2014amply armed, supplied and financed by the United States\u2014against the Red Army in Afghanistan that forced the Kremlin to withdraw ignominiously.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, using the same approach and initially many of the same personnel and methods, Pakistan created and sponsored a mujahideen group calling themselves the Taliban, or \u2018students\u2019 of Islam, who swiftly took over Afghanistan and ruled it as a wholly owned ISI subsidiary. Things were rosy for Gul and his ilk until Osama bin Laden, a former mujahideen fighter who enjoyed the hospitality of the Taliban\u2019s new \u2018Islamic emirate\u2019, ordered the 11 September, 2001, terrorist attacks against the US from his Afghan hideout.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s furious response resulted in the overthrow of the Taliban and the exile of bin Laden, under ISI protection, to refuge in a Pakistani military redoubt. The ISI had even less to crow about when US tracked down bin Laden to a secure compound in Abbottabad and special forces killed him there in 2011.<\/p>\n

But as America wearied of being bogged down interminably in Afghanistan, and the ISI helped its Taliban clients to rearm, reorganise and resume their operations against the US-backed regime in Kabul, the tide turned in the ISI\u2019s favour. President Joe Biden has announced<\/a> that US forces will withdraw completely from Afghanistan by 11 September, the 20th anniversary of the 9\/11 attacks. The date that long symbolised America\u2019s determination to strike at the root of the terrorist attacks against it now signifies its lack of will to continue.<\/p>\n

Whatever face-saving successor arrangements<\/a> the US may put in place to mask its capitulation, its withdrawal from Afghanistan, with none of its long-term objectives achieved, is a defeat. With the Taliban more powerful than ever and poised to reclaim power<\/a> in Kabul, the only external victor will be the ISI. As Gul foresaw, it will have defeated America with America\u2019s help. Pakistan has now received two decades\u2019 worth of US military assistance, totalling an estimated US$11 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ISI has long been obsessed with the idea that controlling Afghanistan would give Pakistan the \u2018strategic depth\u2019 needed to challenge its main adversary, India. A Taliban regime (or even a Taliban-dominated coalition government) in Kabul is the best guarantee of that. The Taliban factions are so beholden to their Pakistani benefactors that, as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani acidly remarked<\/a>, their decision-making bodies\u2014Quetta Shura, Miramshah Shura and Peshawar Shura\u2014are named after the Pakistani towns where they are based.<\/p>\n

But Gul\u2019s successors would be wise to tone down their celebrations. First, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan removes a vital source of leverage for Pakistan in Washington. It may not be good news for Pakistan if the Americans need it less.<\/p>\n

And as the ISI knows, the problem with creating and sponsoring militant groups is that they do not always remain under your control. The lesson of Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein<\/em>\u2014that the creatures we give life to can develop minds and needs of their own\u2014has been apparent elsewhere as well, not least in Israel\u2019s role in building up Hamas as a rival to the Palestine Liberation Organization.<\/p>\n

The same thing has happened in Pakistan, where the period of sullen cooperation between Pakistani authorities and the US during the post-9\/11 American crackdown in Afghanistan spawned the rebellion of the \u2018Pakistani Taliban\u2019. While the Afghan Taliban needed Pakistani refuge, ISI safe houses, funding and arms to mount the insurgency that has brought the US to the point of withdrawal, the Pakistani Taliban have attacked their own erstwhile godfathers for showing insufficient fealty to militant Islam.<\/p>\n

The ISI no doubt hopes that once US forces are gone and the Afghan Taliban is securely entrenched in Kabul, it can persuade the Pakistani Taliban to forgive and forget the agency\u2019s previous transgressions. If that happens, the thinking goes, peace will be restored, the ISI will control Afghanistan and the Pakistani mujahideen will stop targeting Pakistani army installations and convoys, and join the ISI in intensifying attacks on the \u2018real enemy\u2019, India.<\/p>\n

But a nightmarish alternative scenario for the ISI is also possible. Pakistani militant groups, emboldened by the success of their brethren in Afghanistan, might no longer be prey to the military\u2019s blandishments. Instead, they could launch terror attacks with the aim of emulating in Pakistan what the Taliban have achieved in Afghanistan. If Afghanistan can be run as an Islamic emirate, they may ask, why can\u2019t we do the same in Pakistan? Why dance to the ISI\u2019s tune when we can call our own?<\/p>\n

In such a scenario, the ISI\u2019s heady moment of triumph on 11 September this year could seem hollow, as the vipers it has nurtured strike at its own breast. True, the Pakistani Taliban\u2014without a state sponsor of their own\u2014have less chance of success than their Afghan counterparts. But they can still do considerable damage, in the process intensifying the Pakistani public\u2019s disenchantment with the military\u2019s domination of their country.<\/p>\n

Should that happen, we will need to extend Gul\u2019s account and say that the ISI, as the agent of the Pakistani military, helped to \u2018defeat\u2019 or at least discredit itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The late head of Pakistan\u2019s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, was fond of boasting that when Afghanistan\u2019s history came to be written, it would record that the ISI, with the help …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1170,"featured_media":64992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[43,251,1088],"class_list":["post-64985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-afghanistan","tag-pakistan","tag-taliban"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPakistan\u2019s Taliban monster | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/pakistans-taliban-monster\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pakistan\u2019s Taliban monster | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The late head of Pakistan\u2019s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, was fond of boasting that when Afghanistan\u2019s history came to be written, it would record that the ISI, with the help ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/pakistans-taliban-monster\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-06-09T01:00:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-06-09T00:25:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1204647996.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"682\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Shashi Tharoor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shashi Tharoor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/pakistans-taliban-monster\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1204647996.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1204647996.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":682,\"caption\":\"TOPSHOT - Afghan Taliban militants and villagers attend a gathering as they celebrate the peace deal and their victory in the Afghan conflict on US in Afghanistan, in Alingar district of Laghman Province on March 2, 2020. - The Taliban said on March 2 they were resuming offensive operations against Afghan security forces, ending the partial truce that preceded the signing of a deal between the insurgents and Washington. 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