I'm from the tribal areas –my village is surrounded by Afghanistan from 3 sides; we’ve seen, heard and observed a lot of things…I have friends, former colleagues in the insurgency theatre. so dont try to lecture me on anything on this subject and please don’t say these kind of baseless things like ''this is paranoia'' or ''this is assumption''
let me make that clear...
secondly, it would be worth analyzing Tajikistan --which ALSO broke into a bloody civil war when it got independence in 1991. Today, Tajikistan is still corrupt and authoritarian, but it is also tolerably stable — stable enough for the international community to ''forget'' about it (Uzbekistan as well, they tend to ''export'' their problems like IeU to Afghanistan and by extension, Pakistan)
the turnaround was due largely to an intelligently conceived and successfully implemented intervention by a small U.N. mission and a core of unlikely bedfellows that included Iranian and Russia. Rather than forcing free and fair elections, throwing out warlords, and flooding the country with foreign peacekeepers, the intervening parties opted for a more limited and realistic set of goals. They brokered deals across political factions, tolerated warlords where necessary, and kept the number of outside peacekeeping troops to a minimum. The result has been the emergence of a relatively stable balance of power inside the country, the dissuasion of former combatants from renewed hostilities, and the opportunity for state building to develop organically. The Tajik case suggests that in trying to rebuild a failed state, less may be more.
but is it so, in the case of Afghanistan? Well the NATOs tried a similar strategy, forgetting that 50% of the population is Pashtun and that alienating them was pushing them towards taleban –even those that had no love for them. And again, don’t give Pakistan credit for an Afghan phenomenon, Our hands aren’t clean 100% but then again neither are yours; neither are Russias or US or Saudis or the whole ‘’free world’’ for that matter. Ousting the soviets was a noble cause. They were your allies anyways so based on simple mathematics it made sense to drive them out which, thanks to God, the plan succeeded.
Only real issue of contention is post withdrawal. We asked the world community for HELP – we rallied for Afghan cause even when others had forgotten. What were we left with (apart from a lack of options)?
Taleban didn’t fall from nowhere; they were Adfghans – huge majority of them from mujahideen – and they had upper hand so therefore since they gained power we recognized them diplomatically and politically….so did the Saudis, so did UAE –hell, so did the USA (behind closed doors – remember their delegation to Houston?)
Resist your dogmatic urge to pin everything on Pakistan! Wasay tou aadat hai tumara
