Pakistan’s Meddling in Afghanistan Bound to Backfire

 By Wahab Raofi 

Pakistan is trying to gain a foothold in neighboring Afghanistan by imposing its proxy – the Taliban regime– on Afghans. The effort likely will blow up in Pakistan’s face, simply because they are ignoring the adage that “you can rent an Afghan, but you can’t buy him.”

For Pakistan’s plan to work, it must trust the Taliban in Afghanistan, and if history has taught us anything, it’s that nobody can trust the Taliban. 
Pakistan’s goal – to get your neighbor under your thumb – is a relic from he nineteenth century and isn’t practical in the twenty-first century’s globalized economy and connectivity technology. Pakistan would benefit more from fostering trade with its neighbor.

Every time a bomb explodes in Afghanistan, a finger is pointed at Pakistan, accused of arming the Taliban, whose control and command center is in Pakistan. The Pakistani side of the story is that the Afghan government, in collaboration with India (a rival of Pakistan), is supporting the Baluch and Pashtun separatists.

Pakistan’s security apparatus seeks influence by fostering a satellite regime within the Taliban in Afghanistan, in hopes they can counter Indian influence on the west border. But Pakistan should beware of what it wishes for: Afghans have a long history of changing sides.
In 2009, President Obama included in his fiscal military budget a $680 billion defense appropriations bill which included funds to bribe Taliban rank-and-file members to abandon their leaders and switch sides. How did that work out? As Pakistan appears to be doing now, the U.S. simply overlooked the truism: “You can rent an Afghan, but you can’t buy him.”
The Taliban are not driven by ideology. Most are unemployed youth who were hired to fight. In fact, it’s more of anissue of bread and butter than loyalty.

The recent intel report that the Taliban were paid bounties by Russian intelligenceto kill U.S. soldiers is a testament to this. The New York Times reported that American officials intercepted electronic data showing large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account, evidence that supported their suspicion that Russia covertly offered bounties for killing U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan.
There are other reasons why the Taliban may not be a good alternative for Pakistan.

Nationalism in the multi-ethnic Afghan society may not be as strong as in some Arab nations or Iran, but there is a sense of watandar(landholder), which meanscountrymen become united when faced with a foreign threat.
Mullah Zaeef, a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, wrote, “As an Afghan, you are always more than one thing: your kin, your tribe, your ethnicity and the place you were born; all are part of you.”

Freedom and democracy have blossomed. Some may argue that the U.S failed in Afghanistan, but all is not lost. The U.S. soft power and values such as democracy, freedom of speech and human rights are more appealing, especially to the younger generation. Afghanistan’s population is among the world’s youngest and fastest-growing: half its population is under 18, and more than three-quarters are under 40.
In the past 18 years,despite constant war and violence,the new generation enjoyed freedom of speech, and women now hold higher positions. There is no way they would easily give up what has been achieved and return to Taliban rule.

The government of Ashraf Ghani, despite its shortcomings, is not facing a mass public upheaval because Afghans know the alternative is much too costly. This is why we don’t see mass demonstrations.

Even if Pakistan’s ploy to use the Taliban for increased influence worked, it would simply be buying Afghan problems. The  world’s preeminent superpowers – the former Soviet Union and the United States – both failed to rescue their client in Kabul,despite sending huge amounts of money and troops. Afghanistan’s very existencenow depends on foreign help, and it’s not likely Pakistan will be able to afford this project.

Banking on loyalty from the Taliban is a fool’s errand. TheTaliban may be beholden to their own tribes and regions, but political ideology? U.S. military analysts believe local Taliban fighters are motivated largely by the need for a job. They may be loyal to the local leader who pays them, but not to ideology or even religious zealots.

Switching sides is part of Afghans’ culture of survival. They have a history of accepting foreign assistance to fight rival ethnic groups or tribes. The government has always been in flux, and puppet regimes that came to power not by the ballot, but by being installed by foreign forces, are short-lived because they don’t have the support of citizens.

“If the Taliban tries to take complete control of Afghanistan, they will get resistance. It could intensify the civil war and bring other regional actors in,” said Carter Malkasian, a former Pentagon adviser who spent two years in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province as a State Department political officer.

Regional experts warn that Pakistan risks playing a dangerous game if the American military withdrawal leads to a further descent into chaos – fueling a full-scale civil war in which India, Russia and others could back different factions and drag Pakistan into a protracted conflict.

Pakistanis have no assurance that the Taliban would not turn their guns against them. The Pakistan-Taliban relationship is not a bump-free road; it’s pockmarked with suspicion and grievances. The Taliban’s one-eyed leader Mullah Omar was mysteriously found dead in Pakistan, and one of the Taliban’s top negotiators, Mullah Ghani Baradar, was arrested in 2010 in Karachi, Pakistan, and served three years in a Pakistani jail. The reason for his arrest was that he allegedly,along with at least six other senior Taliban leaders, made “approaches” to the government between 2006 and 2010.

Like any other country,Pakistan has a right to be concerned about its self-interest,but grooming the Taliban to take a throne in Kabul is neither a politically nor economically profitable project.

Supporting such a mercurial group or hiring missionaries to wreak havoc with your neighbors and kill innocent civilians is not a long-term solution. Pakistan wouldbenefit more by trading terror for free-market trade.