Afghanistan Times
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The international community has nudged Kabul to resume talks with the Taliban in such a time when Kabul has taken a serious swipe at Pakistan for sheltering them and sending messages of war to Afghanistan. Though Kabul needs peace dialogues with the militants, but not at such a higher cost that Afghan civilians must die on roads and in the streets as if they are insects. No. The wish for peace talks must not be the government’s and the nation’s Achilles heel. The government must talk to them from the position of strength. Like the international community, Pakistan also urged Afghanistan to resume peace negotiations with the Taliban, but what is the guarantee of Pakistan’s sincerity as it is henchmen are bombing Kabul to the hell and Mullah Omar’s funeral prayers in absentia are offered in the capital city of Islamabad. Many in Kabul feel that Afghanistan lacks the capacity to force Pakistan to dump its ties with the Taliban, go after them militarily, but what it can do is to keep the course of annoyance. When peace talks are delivering no results and innocent people are being killed ruthlessly then it is better to be at war against the Taliban and their supporters. We are Afghans and we know how to live in hardships but those who don’t have this skill must think what will be their fate if their own home becomes another Afghanistan. This is not 1990s. This is 2015. The face of the global politics has completely changed. And for how long the United States will provide crutches to Pakistan. The latter by now would have disappeared from the globe given its enormous challenges soon after its birth from the British-India. Though out the US-Pak relations, assistance was terminated after its 1998 nuclear tests and 12th October coup in 1999 by then Gen. Pervez Musharraf. However, this country is ungrateful. Since 2002, the United States has given it US$30 billion and when it was passing through its embryonic phase it was the United States that provided Pakistan millions of dollars. Till date no Muslim nation has given Pakistan as much lavishly as the United States but despite that America is considered to be its enemy. Will such a country that is ungrateful to its generous partner like the United State, ever be supportive of peace in Afghanistan with whom it has a long standing boundary issue? Given its huge challenges after its birth, Pakistan was mad after American help, hoping in particular to secure a half billion dollars’ worth of arms aid. Mad after arms aid? Its ambitions from the very outset are dangerous. Its military is thriving at a higher cost of poverty, crime rate, joblessness, weaker infrastructure, unbearable loans from the international monetary agencies, and above all militancy. Its military and militants are a deadly embrace. They are a potential higher risk for peace in the region and even in the world. Therefore, better it is to suppress Pakistan’s support to militancy. Now America’s dependence on Pakistan is waning as it has struck a successful and historical deal with Iran. Tehran’s support will be sincere as it cannot see ISIS spreading in its neighboring country. And it cannot tolerate the intolerant Taliban. How Tehran will ever forget that in 1990s, it used to request Pakistan to tell its henchmen not to target its nationals in Afghanistan? Iran will never want to see Afghanistan sliding back to into those days. Afghanistan wants peace, but first it wants Pakistan dumping its support to terrorism.
