{"id":80040,"date":"2023-05-30T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2023-05-30T01:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=80040"},"modified":"2023-05-30T12:00:07","modified_gmt":"2023-05-30T02:00:07","slug":"bedlam-in-afghanistan-and-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/bedlam-in-afghanistan-and-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Bedlam in Afghanistan and Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Afghanistan and Pakistan are sinking deeper into disarray, and the United States bears a significant share of the blame. As long as this long-troubled region remains mired in turmoil, Islamist terrorism will continue to thrive, with grave implications for international security.<\/p>\n

Begin with Afghanistan. In the nearly 22 months since the US abandoned the country to the Pakistan-backed Taliban militia, a terrorist super-state has emerged. Beyond committing atrocities<\/a> against the Afghan people and reimposing medieval practices, including reducing Afghan women\u2019s status to that of chattels, the Taliban has sustained cosy ties with al-Qaeda and several other terror groups.<\/p>\n

As a leaked Pentagon assessment<\/a> reports, Afghanistan has become a safe haven<\/a> and staging ground for al-Qaeda and Islamic State terrorists planning attacks on targets in Asia, Europe and the US. This should come as no surprise. The Taliban regime\u2019s cabinet includes a veritable who\u2019s who<\/a> of international terrorists and narcotics traffickers, and it was in Kabul last year that an American drone strike killed<\/a> al-Qaeda leader and UN-designated global terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri.<\/p>\n

While Islamic State may be seeking to expand its international operations from Afghanistan, it is al-Qaeda\u2019s alliance<\/a> with the Taliban that poses the greater long-term international threat. When the US withdrew suddenly from the country, it not only abandoned its allies there, but also left behind billions of dollars\u2019 worth<\/a> of sophisticated American military equipment, in addition to several military bases, including the strategically valuable<\/a> Bagram airbase. The Taliban is now the world\u2019s only terrorist organisation with its own air force<\/a>, however rudimentary.<\/p>\n

In a 12-page document<\/a> issued last month, President Joe Biden\u2019s administration sought to shift the blame for the Afghan fiasco onto Donald Trump, claiming that Biden\u2019s \u2018choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor\u2019. But, while the Trump administration undoubtedly cut a terrible deal with the Taliban, it was Biden who\u2014overruling<\/a> his top military generals\u2014made the choices that triggered Afghanistan\u2019s descent into chaos and facilitated the Taliban\u2019s swift return to power.<\/p>\n

US policy towards Pakistan has also been deeply misguided. It is thanks to a longstanding partnership<\/a> with the US that Pakistan\u2019s military and its rogue<\/a> Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency have been able to use terrorism<\/a> as an instrument of state policy against neighbouring countries. The Trump administration seemed to recognise that and pledged to keep Pakistan at arm\u2019s length until it ended its unholy alliance<\/a> with terrorist organisations.<\/p>\n

But the Biden administration has reversed that policy. Even though Pakistan played an integral role in enabling the Taliban\u2014which the ISI helped create in the early 1990s\u2014to defeat the US in Afghanistan, the Biden administration helped the Pakistani government stave off debt default<\/a> last year. Soon after, the US unveiled a $450-million deal<\/a> to modernise Pakistan\u2019s US-supplied F-16s (which it values as delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons). The US then helped Pakistan get off<\/a> the \u2018grey list\u2019 maintained by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, the intergovernmental agency combating terrorist financing.<\/p>\n

Today, Pakistan is facing profound political instability, rooted in a skewed civil\u2013military relationship. Pakistan\u2019s military has long been untouchable. It has ruled directly for 33 years. And when not technically in power, it has insisted on a pliant<\/a> civilian administration that defers to the generals\u2019 de facto leadership<\/a>. Pakistan\u2019s military, and its intelligence and nuclear establishment, have never answered to the civilian government. On the contrary, since 2017, two prime ministers have been ousted after falling out of favour with the military.<\/p>\n

But supporters of one of those prime ministers, Imran Khan, are now mounting the first direct challenge<\/a> to the military\u2019s authority since Pakistan\u2019s founding 75 years ago. Following Khan\u2019s arrest on corruption charges earlier this month, mass protests erupted<\/a> across Pakistan. Demonstrators stormed<\/a> military properties, including the army headquarters and a major ISI facility, and set ablaze a top army commander\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

As the political crisis unfolds, Pakistan continues to teeter on the brink of default. It is being kept afloat<\/a> by short-term loans from allies, until it can convince the International Monetary Fund to restart<\/a> a suspended bailout program. This gives the international community leverage to force change in the country.<\/p>\n

It is developments at home, especially the unprecedented anti-military protests, that have the greatest potential to force a rebalancing of civilian\u2013military relations. But the military will not go down without a fight: the creeping shadow of military rule has already led to mass arrests<\/a>, with the chief of army staff announcing<\/a> trials under military law of civilians charged in the recent violence. The military could declare a state of emergency, in order to give itself carte blanche to stifle dissent, or it could stage another coup. The conflict could also erupt into civil war<\/a>\u2014ideal conditions for international terrorist forces to thrive.<\/p>\n

For now, Pakistan remains a hub of terrorism<\/a> and is contributing significantly to Afghanistan\u2019s destabilisation. Unless the nexus<\/a> between Pakistan\u2019s military and terrorist groups is severed, the situation in Afghanistan will not improve, and the battle against international terrorism will not be won.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Afghanistan and Pakistan are sinking deeper into disarray, and the United States bears a significant share of the blame. As long as this long-troubled region remains mired in turmoil, Islamist terrorism will continue to thrive, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":482,"featured_media":80041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[43,2825,251,1088,127,2070],"class_list":["post-80040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-afghanistan","tag-joe-biden","tag-pakistan","tag-taliban","tag-terrorism","tag-us-foreign-policy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBedlam in Afghanistan and Pakistan | 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\/bedlam-in-afghanistan-and-pakistan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bedlam in Afghanistan and Pakistan | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Afghanistan and Pakistan are sinking deeper into disarray, and the United States bears a significant share of the blame. 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