Long known for using terrorism as an instrument of statecraft, Pakistan today is paying for its sins. Pakistan and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan were engaged in peace talks in Istanbul, Turkey, to sign a ceasefire following days of deadly violence, but saw a complete collapse of negotiations.
The main sticking point was the Afghan Taliban’s refusal to rein in the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) or Pakistani Taliban. The Pakistani government and the deep state establishment consider the TTP to be an arm of the Afghan Taliban, which is explicitly targeting the state institutions to overthrow the Pakistani ‘Republic’ and establish an Islamic emirate modelled on that of Afghanistan.
In that context, this point needs deeper analysis.
Good Terrorist-Bad Terrorist
Pakistan is, perhaps, one of the few countries in the world that considers using terrorism as a tool to fulfil its national interest and to gain strategic depth, a ‘good policy’ that pays rich dividends. In that context, the Pakistani deep state has cultivated a new doctrine: good terrorist-bad terrorist.
Pakistan is one of the few countries in the world that considers using terrorism as a tool to fulfil its national interest and to gain strategic depth, a ‘good policy’ that pays rich dividends
For Pakistan, the good terrorists are those who would target India and Afghanistan to undermine the social fabric of the concerned nation-states and enable the Pakistani ISI-military combo to gain a strategic advantage at the expense of others. These so-called good terrorist groups, which inter alia include the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammed, Hizbul Mujahideen, and, of late, the Islamic State’s Khorasan branch, are ‘freedom fighters’ who must be propped up to fight for a righteous cause.
This constitutes a part of Pakistan’s asymmetric warfare, including proxy war. Unable to defeat India conventionally or, for that matter, bring the fiercely liberty-minded Pashtuns under its thumb, the Pakistani military establishment resorted to such desperate measures.
In this proxy war, however, the bad terrorists are those who “bleed Pakistan by a thousand cuts.” This is the Pakistani Taliban and the Baloch Liberation Army. At present, the Pakistani Taliban is the focus of attention. Ironically, the Pakistani establishment did not have this problem back in 2021 when the Afghan Taliban seized power with the active assistance of Pakistan.
The Gen Z protests in Nepal, Madagascar, and elsewhere must serve as a reminder to the army-ISI combination in Pakistan that force alone cannot keep a regime in power
Wrong Priorities
However, Pakistan has its priorities extremely wrong. The country has been in the grips of an economic crisis; the value of its currency is plummeting, its foreign exchange reserves are quite low; foreign companies are fleeing the country; inflation is at multi year highs and the economy is operating in an ICU like condition, to be saved every single time by either an IMF bailout package, Saudi economic assistance, or a Chinese loan.
There is little doubt that the Pakistani army is running the show with the government acting merely as eyewash, it should still concern the Pakistani military establishment that a regime, which cannot provide jobs to its youth, secure basic commodities to its citizens, and for that matter continues to use terrorism as a tool of statecraft, will one day or the other collapse. The Gen Z protests in Nepal, Madagascar, and elsewhere must serve as a reminder to the army-ISI combination that force alone cannot keep a regime in power.
A regime needs popular support to acquire legitimacy and survive. While the army props up the anti-India card time and again, every card has an expiry date. In that context, Pakistan needs to pay heed to the statement of former American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She said if one keeps snakes in their own backyard and does not expect them to bite, then sadly, they are gravely mistaken.
For Pakistan, radical Islamic terrorism has proven to be a Frankenstein. Even as the Pakistani deep state expected a comfortable phase in the Afghanistan-Pakistan relationship thanks to the Afghan Taliban in power, they failed to study history. For more than two centuries, Afghanistan fought against foreign invaders and defeated every single one of them- the British, Russians and Americans.
Pakistan needs to pay heed to Hillary Clinton’s statement, “If one keeps snakes in their own backyard and does not expect them to bite, then sadly, they are gravely mistaken”
The Afghans had never recognised the sanctity of the Durand Line and still dream of a unified Pashtunistan. In that context, Pakistan’s threats to the Taliban in general and Afghanistan in particular sound like empty rhetoric at best.
In conclusion, Pakistan must do some serious soul-searching. The Pakistani deep state would do well to set its own house in order and dismantle the elaborate terror machinery it has built over the years; otherwise, it would not take much time for the world’s “only Islamic nuclear power” to degenerate into oblivion.
–The writer is currently working as a Research Associate at Defence Research and Studies (dras.in) and is a columnist. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
