The elephant in the room...
The keys to peace in Afghanistan lie in Pakistan:
... One man who predicted the debacle we are witnessing in Afghanistan today was the journalist Mark Steyn, who wrote the following in a syndicated column dated March 2, 2012: “Six weeks after the last NATO soldier leaves Afghanistan, it will be as if we were never there. We came, we saw, we left no trace. America’s longest war will leave nothing behind.”
How did this happen?
My wife Nargis Tapal and a few of her friends visited Kabul in 1972 and she still remembers the city as a modern metropolis with schoolgirls in all-white uniforms and red bows in their hair.
The word ‘hijab’ had not yet been invented to mean a head wrap and the elderly who covered their heads wore the traditional ‘dupatta’ worn across the Indian subcontinent, across all religious stripes.
She says she was impressed by the well-laid-out streets and sidewalks, the cleanliness and how it contrasted with the cities across the border in Pakistan. Kabul was on the hippie trail and scores of Americans and European youth passed through Afghanistan on their way to India.
Cinema halls exhibited large Bollywood signage and, unlike Pakistan, young women did not have to fear the glaring eyes of men that were, and still are, an ever-present reality across the border.
What turned the tide and made Afghanistan the hellhole the Taliban plan to reintroduce to those who thought they had been driven out?
Canada’s former ambassador to Kabul Chris Alexander is perhaps one of the most astute observers of the Afghanistan war and the unfolding crisis. He places blame for the crisis solely at the feet of the Pakistani establishment whose intelligence agency the ISI has nourished the Taliban and nurtured its so-called jihad.
On Monday Alexander — who was also a federal cabinet minister — tweeted the following: “Pakistan’s ‘forever war’ in Afghanistan began with COAS [General] Zia’s coup OTD in 1977. Far from ending it, Joe Biden’s withdrawal has made it far worse. Pakistan’s ‘forever war’ is now a major threat to international peace & security. #5JulyBlackDay#endproxywar#SanctionPakistan”
Elsewhere, Alexander wrote under the title “Ending Pakistan’s proxy war in Afghanistan”:
“Those in Pakistan still supporting proxy war in Afghanistan should face tough sanctions. Pakistan should be on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklist.” He further called for collective action by the U.S. and its allies “to end Pakistan’s proxy war.”
Alexander is not the only former ambassador who has raised doubts about the efficacy of the American ‘peace talks’ with the Taliban in Doha.
Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the U.S., who is now settled in the U.S., has been a harsh critic of the American-led peace talks in Doha.
When “TalibanOurGuardians” started trending in Pakistan, ambassador Haqqani called it alarming, saying Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi “are lying when they say Islamabad does not want a Taliban victory in Afghanistan.”
Twenty years after occupying Afghanistan, U.S. troops are running away the same way the Soviets withdrew with their tails between their legs — and a coterie of Army generals in Islamabad celebrate their victory by simply breeding more jihadis than can be killed.
While they seek citizenship in the West on retirement, Pakistan’s military brass is relentless in its efforts to undermine the West.
Chris Alexander and Husain Haqqani need to be heard and the West should target Pakistan to end its primary export— Islamic Jihad. Pakistan is a country born in bloodshed, divided in a genocide and who hosted Bin Laden and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad.
The keys to peace in Afghanistan lie in the ISI headquarters in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Looking elsewhere is a folly.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/fatah-the-keys-to-peace-in-afghanistan-lie-in-pakistan
Topic: Afghanistan