Former Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has underscored Pakistan’s role in actively pushing the military surge of the Taliban, through the Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI), to regain “strategic influence” in his country once the United States withdraws its forces in September this year.
“Pakistan wants to exert strategic influence in Afghanistan through the Taliban. This traces back to fears related to the legacy of British colonial rule in the region,” he has told German magazine Der Spiegel in an
interview published this month. Like his successor President Ashraf Ghani, he is disillusioned with the US and looks to European Union (EU) to play the balancer. But unlike Ghani, the incumbent in an unenviable position of being coaxed into dealing with the Taliban, Karzai calls the latter “our brothers.”
To repeated queries from the magazine’s correspondent, he says the Taliban are “after all Afghans”. He sees them seeking supremacy in Afghanistan through military aggression, but also playing the game on
behalf of Pakistan and of the US. “We Afghans Are Just Being Used Against Each Other", goes the
interview’s headline.
"I realized early into my tenure as president that this war is not our conflict," he says after he found during his tenure that the US was “playingboth sides” – bombing Afghanistan territory to eliminate the Taliban, but
also financing Pakistan who, simultaneously supporting the US-led “war on terror”, also sheltered and nurtured the Taliban on its soil.
Although hand-picked to lead Afghanistan by the US and the Western powers at the Bonn Conference, Karzai says he grew disillusioned by their continued play of retaining their presence in the region in which Pakistan was seen as a facilitator, no matter its promotion of terrorism and hosting of the Taliban. That included promoting Islamist extremist groups.
“When things started to go wrong in Afghanistan – around 2005, 2006, when the extremist terrorist attacks started – we talked to the U.S. about the different causes of the violence. We knew that these attacks were being organized by intelligence in Pakistan and carried out by the Taliban.
The U.S. confirmed this independently, telling us: Yes, the violence is coming from Pakistan, and yes, the Taliban's sanctuaries are there. But instead of investigating the root cause of the violence and going after it, Washington started to fund Pakistan's military,” he said in the interview. Asked if the US was not compensating Pakistan for using its territory and waters to maintain the military operations in Afghanistan, Karzai quoted former US President Donald Trump that the US had given Pakistan USD 35 billion over the past 19 years.
“This contradictory policy cost thousands of Afghan lives – troops and civilians alike. Tell me, how was Afghanistan supposed to come to peace? That peace and stability in Afghanistan is needed for any normal
relationship with Pakistan in future, Karzai has said in response to a specific query if peace can be ensured if Afghanistan accepts the Durand Line that Pakistan recognises as the international border. Described by the magazine as the “most influential Afghan”, Karzai, at 63, a relatively young politician, probably sees a role of for himself in the present and the future. He, therefore, welcomes the initiative of the US,
Russia, China and Pakistan, and also the British, the former imperial
power in the region. “We Afghans very much welcome the British initiative in this regard and want to have strong relations with Pakistan. There is a great opportunity in that. But a strategic partnership between Afghanistan and Pakistan can only exist if there is peace and stability in Afghanistan, if the trust deficit is eliminated, and if Pakistan shows itself to be a good neighbor.” But he emphasises on the need for strict neutrality in the region, especially the two adversarial neighbours to Afghanistan’s West.
If Pakistan has ‘strategic’ designs on Afghanistan, India, on the other hand, has invested three billion dollars to further his country’s progress and enjoysconsiderable acceptance. He told Der Spiegel: “Pakistan actually would like Afghanistan to break off relations with India. That is impossible. If we give in to this, we would give up our sovereignty and independence. If we want to send our police or our army or our boys and girls to India for training because it is good for our county, we should do so. Conversely, India should not complain if we have friendly relations with Pakistan.”
