The Great Absentees
The fact is that two of the conference’s essential pillars were missing. The first was Pakistan, a country that is fundamental in resolving the Afghan issue That is why there are increasing references to “Afpak”, indicating that the solution to the Afghan rebus also, and perhaps above all, is to be found in Islamabad.
However, the Pakistani delegation deserted the German summit. Why? By not attending Pakistan wished to express its disapproval of NATO’s end of November air raid on a border post in which over twenty Pakistani soldiers were killed. In the days that followed the air raid there were stern protests from the people and from the government in Islamabad. As a mark of its opposition to NATO’s air raids in their country, the most important resulting in the death of Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan has suspended NATO convoys from transiting through its territories bordering on Afghanistan. Furthermore, the United States has been evicted from the Shamsi Air Base in the province of Baluchistan, in the south-west of the country from where the Americans often flew their drones.
The second flop at the Bonn conference was the absence of the Taliban, initially expected and which would have been the symbol of a desire for compromise and peace in the central-Asian country. The rebels, however, did not turn up, nor did the head of the Afghan state Hamid Karzai desperately try to bring them to the negotiating table.
Analysts have linked Pakistan’s decision not to attend the conference to that of the Taliban, and not unfairly, since many guerrilla fighters use the mountains over the border in Pakistan as a logistic base and a place of refuge. It is said that very often Pakistani intelligence services offer or used to offer them protection. It is clear that the Taliban issue cannot be separated from the Pakistani one.
Possible solutions
Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have never been simple. Afghanistan was the only country to oppose Pakistan joining the United Nations, due to claims over the Pashtu areas situated over the Pakistani border. This resulted in Afghanistan entering agreements with India and consequently irritating Pakistan which, as known, has always had unstable relations with its Indian neighbours. Diffidence between the two countries has resulted in four wars (1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999), as well moments of great nuclear tension (both have atomic weapons).
When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Pakistan tried to exploit the situation to its own advantage, assisting the Afghan resistance with the objective of setting up a friendly government in Kabul. The attempt failed.
Following the withdrawal of the Red Army in 1989, without exposing itself excessively Pakistan supported the rise of the Taliban, considered useful for controlling Afghanistan.
The rest is contemporary history. After 9/11 and the fall of the Taliban regime, Afghan-Pakistani relations have remained tense. Kabul continues to claim the right to the Pashtu areas situated within Pakistan, while Pakistan is trapped between the need to “protect” its strategic interests and the need to support the anti-terrorism effort enacted by its American allies, now less allied than usual, who have always provided economic and military support. This has resulted in “double-crossing” with on one hand the internal battle against Islamic extremism and discreet support for the Taliban abroad on the other.
How can this situation be unravelled? Many believe that Kabul must provide Islamabad with clear reassurances, explaining that the relations Karzai has re-established with the Indians by signing a strategic partnership do not damage Pakistan, and that the Pashtu problem, albeit of great importance to the Afghan political elite, is not important enough to poison bilateral relations. Islamabad should instead make greater efforts to control and manage the tribal areas at the border where the Taliban are based and stop the double-crossing, in exchange for Afghanistan accepting Pakistani geopolitical interests, as recently rumoured, and therefore that the country should exercise a degree of influence over Afghan internal affairs. Afghanistan however should retain the right to sovereignty and stability, including the right to sign agreements with India.
It is obvious that the situation is extremely complex and it will not be easy to ask the parties involved to mitigate their respective requirements and demands and lower their levels of intransigence.
2014
In spite of the absence of Pakistan and of the Taliban delegation, Afghanistan’s future was discussed in Bonn, but no important statements were made as happened ten years ago. The near-future was however laid out and it involves an exit strategy.
As known, 2014 is the deadline for military disengagement from Afghanistan. The troops from America and from other countries taking part in the ISAF mission under the aegis of NATO will leave the country gradually in the near future. One wonders what might happen in Kabul with no western military protection. One wonders whether Karzai’s government will manage to stand alone or whether the Taliban will dare a regime change. This last hypothesis seems a little exaggerated seeing that the Taliban rebels and war lords, also active in the insurgency, do not have all the military resources some of the press has reported.
The fundamental issue concerns the support America and the West in general will provide to Afghanistan after 2014. Everyone says that economic aid, civil aid and moral and political support for Kabul’s central institutions will have to be guaranteed, while simultaneously trying to encourage an Afghan-Pakistani deal. To do this it will be necessary to regain Pakistan’s trust, re-establishing a stable relationship and also providing Pakistan with political and financial guarantees. One is under the impression that this is only the beginning of this “great game.”
Translated by Francesca Simmons