The US and Taliban (not the Afghan \u00a0government) inked a deal in Doha on 29 February ,chalking \u00a0out map of the withdrawal of The US and its allies from Afghanistan, which is being seen as a huge step forward to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan. To what extent is this agreement \u00a0practicable, we need to peek into Afghan history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reflecting at post 1979 scenario,\nthe USSR invaded Afghanistan with its biggest war machinery in the world, and within\na month, the Russians occupied the entire Afghanistan. Before the invasion, there\nwere two political parties in Afghanistan: Khalq Party and Pacrham Party (both enjoyed\nthe backing of KHAD and RAW). Both parties though rivals to each other, were pro\nsocialist and pro-communist which paved the way for the Russians invasion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In that scenario, the Pakistan government decided\nto side with the resistant forces, and successfully managed to halt the Russian\nadvancement, which later encouraged the Americans to extend their support to\nthe resistant forces. When the Russians\nwere exhausted by gruella war and suffered colossal economic, military and\nhuman losses, they sought to leave Afghanistan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
General Zia-ul-Haq had a viable\nplan for the Afghan crisis: he wanted the Russians to clear all mines before\nleaving. He also wanted an election so that the people of Afghanistan could\ndecide their future. The government of Pakistan established Slam Program in the\nlead of sir Agha Khan in Islamabad: to build infrastructure in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But things took a coarser turn when PM Junejo convened an all Parties Conference\n(including Benazir Bhutto(late) . Unaware of the geo strategical and geopolitical consequences, the leadership decided\nto sign a peace deal with the Russians\nin Geneva. Noteably,The Russians inked the accord the government of Pakistan,\nnot with the resistant forces in Afghanistan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Geneva agreement gave the Russians a much needed graceful exit. Following\nthe agreement, in a rather hurried move, the Russians left Afghanistan military\nmachinery only to be amassed by the Afghan lords to continue for future\ninternal conflicts. Soon, these warlords started to fight against each other\nfor throne, killing thousands of fellow Afghans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, thanks to efforts of PM Nawaz Sharif and General Hamid Gul(late)\nthat Mecca Accord was signed amongst the warring lords which gave a hope that\npeace with ensue in Afghanistan. Moulana Ghulam Nabi was made the president\nwith a premise to hold the elections. Ghulam Nabi stepped down, upholding the\npromise,but his successor Burhan uddin\nRabbani backtracked. He had good family ties with Ahmed Shah Masood of the Northern\nalliance. That act of betrayal led to further chaos in already ravaged Afghanistan.\nThat bedlam led to the arrival Taliban who ran through Kabul and restored peace\nin Afghanistan. They hanged prominent leaders including Dr. Najeebullah, Burhan\nuddin Rabbani and Arsala Khan .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The woes in Afghanistan did not end there; in fact, the unfortunate 9\/11\nattack, Afghanistan became yet another battle field between the US and its\nallies. History witnessed hitherto another epic war between the biggest superpower\nof the world and the Taliban. History repeated and the US was forced to the negotiation\ntable and eventually sign an agreement in Doha. Would its fate be similar to\nthe previous accords or it holds something good in store for us. It\u2019s important\nto mention here that various warlords, mainly the northern alliance and the\npresent government are not the part of the accord. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three important political parties of Afghanistan and Abdullah Abdullah ,\nHamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani are not a party\nto this agreement . Ashraf Ghani government did not allow Pakistani High\nCommission in Kabul to commemorate the Kashmir Day this year and last year as\nwell. These parties an obvious having leaning to the Indians, though they have\ndeep internal differences, similar to the Khalq party and Pacrham of 1970 era. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Apart from internal threats to Doha agreement, many foreign players are\nnot pleased with this treaty. The Indians are not very happy despite the fact\nthat they have been second donors of foreign aid to Afghanistan, and deep\nmilitary stakes have been sidelined. Moreover, Railway road to Tashkand which\nhas not been operationalized appears to have doomed. Apparently, Iran is happy\nwith the development because the significance of Chabhar Port has been grossly\nshadowed too. Iran has been supporting Northern alliance and would continue to\ndo so, further undermining the peace treaty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As agreed upon, the US and the allied would withdraw within fourteen\nmonths; however, the US is not likely to leave the battle field empty. They\nwould equip and strengthen their ally to further their future interest in Afghanistan\nand beyond. It means fire in Afghanistan is not going to dowse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even after the withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan, Pakistan needs to\nbe wary of international spoilers of CPEC. To face the challenge our civ-mil establishment,\nthe political and religious parties would have to play a mature role to avert\nany other crisis at the Western front and a flood of refugees, which Pakistan would\nnot be able to host any more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The writer is an academic based in Islamabad can be reached at\nsliklight55@gmail.com <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US and Taliban (not the Afghan \u00a0government) inked a deal in Doha on 29 February ,chalking \u00a0out map of the withdrawal of The US and its allies from Afghanistan, which is being seen as a huge step forward to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan. To what extent is this agreement \u00a0practicable, we need […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,46,48,1],"tags":[52,50,53,49,51],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afghan-taliban","category-afghanistan","category-doha-agreement","category-uncategorized","tag-afghan-crisis","tag-afghanistan","tag-doha-agreement","tag-us-and-taliban","tag-ussr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sliklight.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sliklight.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sliklight.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sliklight.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sliklight.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sliklight.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115,"href":"https:\/\/sliklight.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions\/115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sliklight.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sliklight.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sliklight.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sliklight.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}