A new orientation

There seems to be a moment of pure déjà vu for Pakistan and Afghanistan. Their attempt to restore regional unanimity in the realm of peace and security and ensure that extra-territorial forces do not come to derail cohesiveness has been ongoing for quite some time.

Published: Sat 18 Feb 2012, 9:38 PM

Last updated: Fri 3 Apr 2015, 12:46 AM

But the neighbours’ estrangement is no secret, as the impugned war on terrorism had been a bargaining tool to win laurels from the United States. Nonetheless, a decade of animosity and competition that had left geopolitics in tatters had made them at least realise that there is a need to revisit their past cooperation for reasons of exigency. Though Afghanistan and Pakistan had been exchanging high-level visits previously as well, the recent trilateral summit in Islamabad seems focused on taking the Taleban on board as an indispensable factor.

The summit boasts the additional feature of Iran at a time when war hysteria is on the rise. Tehran’s clandestine nuclear programme and its kneejerk stunts towards Washington’s defence layout in the Gulf is now a serious bone of contention. How effectively that issue would be highlighted and dealt in Islamabad is hard to guess, but it goes without saying that the three South West Asian countries’ joining of hands could discourage the solo flight that the US and the West might plan to further jingoism in the region.

Kabul and Islamabad, despite their embattled political dispensations are facing an immensely grave strategic issue. The issue pertains the course of security following the exit of US troops by 2014. With the realisation that the Pentagon’s strategy to destroy and dismantle the Taleban has backfired, efforts are underway to broker a patch-up. The talks in Qatar in which Washington tried to lure the Taleban at the cost of dumping the Karzai bogey are quite meaningful. What role Pakistan will have in facilitating a thaw is not easy to guess despite its immense influence with the Pakhtoon militia. To further compound the situation is the food and fuel blockade that Islamabad continues to implement against the Coalition forces stationed in Afghanistan via its territory. Whether those issues have been touched in rewriting a new socio-economic and security doctrine is not known. But the very fact that trial and error had made Kabul and Islamabad fall in line is no less than an achievement.