During the past week Islamabad played host to three high-ranking American visitors; all of them coaxing Pakistan to use its misperceived influence with Afghan Taliban to rejoin peace parleys. The reluctance on the part of Taliban leadership to resume talks with the Americans, in Islamabad or anywhere else, stems from its reported apprehension that the host government would insist that Kabul, too, be invited to join peace talks. But before agreeing to have Kabul government as one more party to the talks the Taliban want the other side to agree on three things - withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan, release of prisoners and lifting of curbs on their travel. And that doesn't fit in with the Americans' agenda; they think by accepting the Taliban's preconditions they would be leaving the Kabul government at the mercy of the insurgents. On the ground, the Taliban are clear winners, and they believe that they are in position to have peace talks on their terms. As to what weight the Americans give to the Taliban preconditions there are no clear signs. Can Pakistan force Taliban to change their stand? This question has no easy answer though. If history is any guide, the Afghan, be they rulers in Kabul or insurgents in the field, are fiercely independent and refuse to be sucked into others' dreamlands. They make their own decisions.
Last week the first to arrive here was President Trump's point-man Zalmay Khalilzad. He wanted to meet the Taliban interlocutors in Islamabad. But that was not to be. If they refused to meet the Americans in the UAE and Saudi Arabia to avert the host's pressure to accept Kabul as part of peace talks what chance was there that Islamabad would not make the same demand? The leading US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Centcom commander General Joseph L Votel were the next two visitors from Washington. All three met with Prime Minister Imran Khan, Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and other officials. One thing different from ever before was that none of them insisted on Pakistan to "do more". They generously appreciated Pakistan's continuing interest in a peaceful Afghanistan, where it wants the end of civil war and seeks the final settlement based on 'Afghan-led and Afghan-owned' formula. General Bajwa told the Centcom chief that peace in Afghanistan is vital for peace in the region, and to that Pakistan would do its part despite various constraints. If the two visits ended on expected note, the third did not. Senator Graham, who has been a regular visitor to Afghanistan and a close advisor to President Trump on Afghanistan, came up with something new and quite different from the norm. He didn't repeat the mantra that Islamabad should 'do more' by expelling the so-called Haqqani Network and denying its soil to anti-Kabul insurgents. The United States and Pakistan have entered a new "strategic partnership for economic gains and peaceful settlement of Afghan conflict", he told reporters after his meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan. He also promised that he will request President Trump to meet the prime minister "to cement the bilateral relations further". To him Pakistan is "most strategic partner" than ever before.
Our memory may be short but not as much the Americans would like us to believe. There was a time when Pakistan was the 'ally'; then came the time when it was accused of "deceit and lies", and now it is a "strategic partner". What is this? Sometime back President Trump announced that he wanted to end America's 17-year involvement in Afghanistan, and as first step the US would slash its 14,000-troops presence by half. Perhaps Washington is looking for proxies who should step in to protect the Kabul administration in case President Trump ordered reduction of its military presence in Afghanistan. That being the backdrop, irrespective of the offer of economic lollypops Pakistan cannot afford to be more allied than allies once more. As indicated by a recently-released Rand report, the post-withdrawal scenario is extremely worrying. According to the study, should foreign troops leave Afghanistan the Taliban will lose interest in negotiating peace and Afghanistan's neighbours will get even more involved in war in that country. Rightly then, Pakistan wants the US not to withdraw without a negotiated settlement from Afghanistan. Pakistan needs to think deeper before making any move beyond the parameters of its stated policy on the civil war in Afghanistan. For that the most appropriate forum is parliament. Let the prime minister come to the house and brief the members on the visit of Senator Graham and implications of the message he brought from Washington.