The article was forwarded by Mr. Tahir Mahmood.
It is a thoughtful but very scary analysis. Present Afghan Army mix includes 41 % Tajiks. India has built many consulates and is also involved in training police force. America does not trust Pakistan and would like more proxy influence through India. Taliban and other groups from Pakistan are counting days to grab the pie. All the ingredients are in place for an explosive civil war. The question raised by Mr. Khaled about the funding of Taliban and other groups is a scary scenario for Pakistan.
” Therefore, the blowback from Afghanistan this time will be transformational for Pakistan. It may not survive the ‘fundraising’ by its non-state actors through kidnappings and bank robberies in its major cities. This trend among the state-supported jihadi outfits has been in evidence.”
If we are worried about law and order in Pakistan now, we should wait till American forces are withdrawn, it may be get even worse..To read the complete article click on the link;
http://tribune.com.pk/story/368057/pakistan-after-the-american-withdrawal/
Mirza Ashraf has written on global perspective of ” Subcontinent Indo-Pak”, and is interesting read from global perspective. The link to article;
http://www.thinkersforumusablog.org/archives/456/comment-page-1#comment-232
The articles are relevant to our next topic of Forum meeting, “Law and Order in Pakistan”.
Fayyaz
Please read this as a continuation of the Pak-Afghan-Iran dilemma and then comment on the views reflected by Khalid Ahmed.
KABUL, Afghanistan: After months of negotiations, the United States and Afghanistan on Sunday (April 22, 2012) finalized an agreement that pledges U.S. support for Afghanistan for 10 years after the withdrawal of troops at the end of 2014. The agreement, whose text was not released, builds on hard-won new understandings the two countries reached in recent weeks on the thorny issues of detainees and special operations raids to broadly redefine the relationship between Afghanistan and the United States.
“The document finalized today provides a strong foundation for the security of Afghanistan, the region and the world, and is a document for the development of the region,” Rangin Dadfar Spanta, the Afghan national security adviser, said in a statement released by President Hamid Karzai’s office.
The U.S. ambassador, Ryan Crocker, speaking on Sunday to Afghanistan’s national security council, said the agreement meant that America was committed to helping Afghanistan as “a unified, democratic, stable and secure state,” the statement said.
The talks to reach the deal were intense, and at times talks broke down when they became a stage for the geopolitics of the region around Afghanistan, where two powerful neighbors, Iran and Pakistan, are opposed to long-term U.S. ties. But many Afghans, including some who are ambivalent about the U.S. presence, believe that the country’s survival is tied to having such an agreement with Washington. They believe it will make clear to the Taliban and to regional powers that the United States will not abandon Afghanistan, as Washington did in the 1990s after the Soviets were pushed out.
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/04/22/3191737/us-pledges-10-years-of-aid-to.html#storylink=cpy
Mirza
I do not think this is un-expected news and makes any difference in the analysis by Khaled.Ahmed. It was always expected that USA will keep its some presence in Afghanistan.The U.S.A and India will support the Northern Alliiance ( Tajiks and others) in civil war. The main object of the article is – from where the money and support will come from for Talibans and other supporting actors in Pakistan?. The author suggests that large part from Pakistan from increased kidnapping ransom and bank robberies in Pakistan as is evident even now. I do not think peace talks will produce anything, and even if successful it will not last long.
China, Russia and Iran will come in the mix also and making the situation even more complex.
Fayyaz
I think we should be more concerned with the money funneled by
India and the drug money(and opium of course) along with the fudes of the
Fedual Lords of Afghan-Pak frontier region than any thing else.
Nisar
Pakistan is a country with a stagnant economy and a bloated defense budget that is still geared to a faceoff with India, a country ten times larger with far more resources, instead of fighting a bloody religious internal civil war. IThe relationship with the US is emblematic. The Americans, given their historic short attention span, are in the habit of allocating vast resources to obtain their objectives, often unsuccessfully. The Pakistan establishment has benefited from their strategic assets. The army has received $12 billion and billions more in economic aid, with little to show for it. The US is now in the process of reassessing its failed policies and Pakistan is overplaying its hand with protracted negotiations over issues like the NATO supply route. True, it is costing the US much more to supply alternate routes but once they are set Pakistan will lose out. One of the reasons for the long civil war in Afghanistan and by extension the tribal area of Pakistan, is that the various tribal and ethnic groups have not been able to work out political accomodations. It is going to take a generation to resolve such conflicts and then only through improvements in civil society, education and economy. A poor Pakistan is not going to be able to maintain any positions other than as spoilers. And that is not the prescription of success for any state.
With respect to Dr Nasic,I would disagree to his view that “poor”Pakistan have no role other than spoiler.I want to remind the practice in our childhood that when some one was excluded from playing any game,he always ruined the playing field and everybody left home without enjoying the game and the left out guy always rolled as spoiler.But here in this scenario Pakistan even is not ready for spoiler’role,it is unfortunate that we were not able to have our national agenda in front arena of diplomatic front.We always followed the others.We have another stigma that we want to be on one side which is very dangerous for the nation having high emotions.The foreign relations never evolve on emotions but the national interests but being lack of education among masses in general and in especially in our political leadership made it hard to engrave our national agenda on our diplomatic world, and it enabled others to make us vulnerable in international commity.
As for as the current diplomacy in the region is concerned,Pakistan needs to rebuild its periorities
The gist of the article by Dr. Nasik and comments by Mr. Tahir is that it is the poverty of knowledge and education that ruins a nation. Illiteracy is the root cause of the fall of a nation.