By Saeed Minhas
ISLAMABAD: Amidst all sorts of rumours floating around about a political change in the country, a visit by the charm-ambassador of the UNHCR, Angelina Jolie, a number of European and US dignitaries, the Turkish first lady, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai kept the diplomatic corps busy throughout the week.
Finally, many ambassadors have started chipping in for flood relief and rehabilitation efforts, who were previously just not sure what to do because of the confusing figure-work churned out by all relief agencies, various government departments including the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), and handful of cabinet members.
The Saudis have brought in their two mobile hospitals and relief teams, Argentineans are out in southern Punjab, the ambassador of Maldives arranged a telethon to raise funds, and so much so that even the 30-member strong organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) also woke up to send its secretary general, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, to witness the extent of the floods and pledge some funds.
Since the US was already there from the start of the floods with a fleet anchored in the Arabian Sea, over 300 Marines on ground helping almost two dozen of helicopters and C-130 combined and UN raising the call for humanitarian aid to record $2 billion, the capacity and capability of the Gilani-government still remained under discussion.
Except for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, all remaining visiting dignitaries focused only on floods. Since it is the time of parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, where an estimated four million voters, as per the claim of the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan, cast their votes on Saturday, Karzai’s pre-poll visit was considered significant. These Afghan elections have shown a new trend of falling voters turnout because the last held presidential elections were reported to have received the attention of seven million voters out of an estimated 13 million registered ones, but now a mere four million for over 2,500 candidates vying for 249 seats in the Lower House of parliament certainly has spurred another debate in our diplomatic circles.
The Afghan conundrum is so complex that despite drafting in additional 30,000 troops, US’s special envoy for Af-Pak, Richard Holbrook, has to say that the Taliban remain an issue of enormous concern for the US “because we’re in a very difficult situation in Afghanistan”. In the same breath, Holbrooke also expressed hope that a surge in troops will tilt the fulcrum in their favour in the near future because the new troops have just arrived and after unpacking their stuff are being deployed in eastern Afghanistan for strategic and mostly for moral edge over the guerrilla forces of the al Qaeda, Taliban, multitude of war-lords and, above all, in the world polity where not only the Afghanistan government is loosing its credibility but denting the US image as a uni-polar champ.
Karzai, as our diplomatic sources claim, did receive a warm welcome coupled with a fact-based briefing from our Interior Malik when he drew his attention towards the lack of cooperation from the Afghan government in controlling the free flow of Taliban and terrorists across the the Pak-Afghan borders. Although Karzai remained cool and calculated during his interaction with the media, his comrades have not taken the onslaught from the Pakistani officials positively.
Especially when he was asked to clarify the intent of the Afghan militias in making the biometric identification units dysfunctional on three official border crossings (Turkham, Tuftan and Chamman) to let human and goods smuggling flourish. Offence was also taken when Indian activities in the vicinity of the Pakistani borders were highlighted and issue of Indians sponsoring the terrorists’ acts through various outfits including Brahamdagh Bugti (grandson of slain Baloch leader Akbar Bugti) came up as a passing remark. But as our sources claim that Karzai was not here to sort out any such thing because he was here to ensure that his plan of bringing in his trusted comrades in parliament through upcoming elections should not be thwarted by the TTP, which in turn equally upset the Pakistani side.
Since his elections are likely to have a direct bearing on the upcoming mid-term elections in the US, and he will also be visiting the US around the same time the election results of these parliamentary elections will be finalised, therefore his efforts to synchronise his mindset with the Pakistani leadership remained his sole aim and objective. Sources, however, reveal that knowing the fact that how much foreign policy leverages our elected government enjoys, Karzai managed nothing but a chit chat with the Pakistani leadership and returned on a low-note of no profit, no loss.
With the talks of American forces drawdown, reconciliation with the insurgents and Taliban renewed against US war machines, debate has already been shaping up on the single topic that would it be possible to lure the genie back into bottle which was unleashed after the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Though Holbrooke dispelled the impression categorically during his briefings in Islamabad that “neither we are loosing any battles nor the war against Taliban”, yet the question remains that if during the past nine years, the Afghan government has failed to take control of more than 60 percent of the country, what will be its fate once the US decides to pack up and leave just like they are doing in Iraq. How will it impact the regional power equilibrium where China, India, Russia, Iran and the US-Pakistan duo will all be hoping to avoid another round of Talibanisation or eventual balkanisation? More on this in our next episode.
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