Rejoinder
to Dr. SubhashKapila
Asif Haroon
Raja
Dr. SubhashKapila has written an
article in Eurasia Review the theme of which is, “Afghanistan cannot be abandoned to China-Pakistan-Russia Troika”. A
highly melancholic and distressful picture has been painted by the writer in a
bid to remind Donald Trump Administration that Afghanistan is slipping out of
the hands of the US and unless urgent and immediate measures are taken to
forestall the impending strategic loss, Afghanistan would be lost for good
which will have grave consequences for the sole super power. A persuasive
wakeup call has been given to incite Trump to act before it is too late.
Subhashmalevolently suggests that China-Pakistan axis now complemented by
Russia will overturn the stability of the region. He has rung alarm bells
that amidst the din of US Presidential election, Afghanistan has seemingly
disappeared from the radar screen of USA and the Troika has fully exploited the
vacuum to exploit it to its own advantage and to the disadvantage of
Washington.
He sprinkles salt on the emotive
feelings of USA by lamenting that the US huge investment and loss of lives of thousands
of American soldiers have all gone waste owing to double dealing of Pakistan
which the US has been claiming to be its strategic ally. He warned the new US
policy makers that the Troika is fully poised to seize the strategic turf of
Afghanistan and thus deprive USA of its influence in Central Asia and Southwest
Asia.
One may ask Subhash as to why no concern
was shown by him or any Indian writer when theTroika of USA-India-Afghanistan assisted by UK and Israel was formed in 2002 to target Pakistan. The Troika
that has caused excessive pain and anguish to Pakistan and its people is still
active. All these years, Pakistan was maliciously maligned, ridiculed and
discredited and mercilessly bled without any remorse. The objective of the
Troika and its supporters was to create chaos and destabilize the whole region
which was peaceful till 9/11.
India was in
the lead to destabilize, de-Islamize, denuclearize and fragment Pakistan. The US installedpuppet
regimes of Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani wholly under the perverse influence of
India played a lead role in bleeding Pakistan by allowing so many hostile
agencies to use Afghan soil for the accomplishment of their ominous designs.
The vilest sin of the so-called
allies of Pakistan was its pretension of friendship and continuously stabbing
Pakistan in the guise of friends. Worst was that Pakistan was distrusted and
asked to do more against the terrorists funded, trained and equipped by the
Troika and was humiliated by saying that it was either incompetent or an
accomplice.
Driven by the desire to become the
unchallenged policeman of the region and a bulwark against China, India
assisted by its strategic allies has been constantly weaving webs of intrigue
and subversion and striving hard to encircle and isolate Pakistan.
Proxy wars were ignited in FATA,
Baluchistan and Karachi to politically destabilize Pakistan, weaken its economy
and pin down sizeable size of Army within the three conflict zones so as to
create conducive conditions for launching India’s much trumped up Cold Start
Doctrine and destroy Pakistan’s armed forces.
India’s national security adviser has
admitted that Pakistan has been subjected to his defensive-offensive doctrine
to dislocate it through covert war. India’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh has
vowed to break Pakistan into ten pieces. Modi has openly admitted that he has
established direct links with anti-Pakistan elements in Baluchistan,
Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir. He confessed India’s central role in
creating Bangladesh in 1971 and has often stated that pain will be caused to
Pakistan. This is done by way of acts of terror against innocent civilians including
school children, resorting to unprovoked firing across the LoC in Kashmir, and
resorting to water terrorism. Pakistan has been repeatedly warned to lay its
hands off Kashmir or else lose Baluchistan.
Pakistan has miraculously survived
the onslaughts of the Troika and has stunned the world by controlling foreign
supported terrorism after recapturing 19 administrative units from the TTP and
its allied groups and up sticking all the bases in the northwest, breaking the
back of separatist movement in Baluchistan and restoring order in lawless
Karachi by dismantling the militant infrastructure of MQM and banned groups. Army,
Rangers and Frontier Corps assisted by air force have achieved this miracle of
re-establishing writ of the State in all parts of the country. 85% of terrorism
has been controlled.
Random
terror attacks are now wholly planned and executed from Kunar and Nangarhar in
Afghanistan under the patronage of RAW ad NDS and supervised by CIA.
Consequent to new wave of terrorism
last month, Operation Rad-e-Fasaad has been launched as a follow up of
Operation Zarb-e-Azb to net facilitators, handlers and financiers of terrorists
and to demolish sleeping cells in urban centres. Scope of this operation has
been extended to all parts of the country, and all the three services are
taking part in it to cleanse Pakistan from the presence of paid mercenaries and
fifth columnists.
Implementation of 20 points of National
Action Plan is being religiously expedited to eliminate scourge of terrorism. Afghan
refugees are being returned and management of western border radically improved
to prevent infiltration of terrorists.
Terrorism
can however not be rooted out unless root causes that heighten extremism are
addressed, and the bases in Afghanistan as well as the patrons stoking
terrorismremain operative.
Pakistan has overcome energy crisis,
considerably improved its macroeconomics and its stature in the world. Operationalization
of CPEC, hosting of ECO meeting and holding of PSL cricket finals in Lahore have
broken the myth of isolation.
Pakistan has made its defense
impregnable by raising the level of minimum nuclear deterrence to full spectrum
deterrence. Robust conventional and nuclear capability together with stable
political and economic conditions have thwarted India’s desire to attack
Pakistan overtly.
India and its strategic allies have
been stopped in their tracks and left with no choice but to contend with covert
war supplemented with propaganda war and coercive tactics to give vent to their
pent up anger.
India which is the chief villain of
peace isdeeply perturbed and is shedding tears over its failures and loss of
billions spent on proxies to detach FATA, Baluchistan, Karachi and AJK from
Pakistan, or to disable Pakistan’s nuclear program.Rapid progress made by CPEC
has made the deadly Troika more rancorous.
Finding that its nasty game plan has
run into snags with little chance of recovery, and above all Afghanistan is slitheringaway
because of resurgence of Taliban and ostensible insouciance of Washington, India
is once again making efforts to provoke Trump and ruffle his feathers,the way it
had efficaciously prevailed upon George Bush and Obama. It is now working on a
new theme of demonizing so-called Troika
of China-Russia-Pakistan, which is
so far not in existence and is an illusion. Subhash is among the propaganda
brigade selling this illusory theme and is suggesting that the so-called Troika have hegemonic and
military designs against Afghanistan.
CPEC is an economic venture aimed at
promoting peace and friendship in the region as a whole. It promises goodwill,
harmony, and mutual prosperity through connectivity. Both China and Pakistan
shun war mongering, proxy wars and psy operations to disparage others. The duo
is bereft of colonial or quasi-colonial designs against any country. Since its
memo is altogether different from the imperialist agenda of Indo-US-Israel, it
threatens to unravel the global ambitions of the trio.
Whereas Afghanistan has not accepted
the British demarcated Durand Line as a border with Pakistan and has been
supportive of Pakhtunistan stunt, Pakistan has no disputes with Afghanistan and
has always treated it as a brotherly Muslim neighbor.
Repeated invitations to India and
Afghanistan to join CPEC and reap its benefits have been turned down. Both are
complacent that CPEC will be a non-starter without inclusion of peaceful
Afghanistan, ignoring the fact that they are getting isolated. Moreover, a new
route from Kazakhstan via Wakhan corridor is in pipeline which will bypass
Afghanistan.
While China and Pakistan have jointly
embarked upon the journey of peace and friendship and are attracting many
countries, Russia is still hesitant and has so far not formally joined the
bandwagon of CPEC which has great potential and has grandiose plans to link
South Asia with Central Asia, Middle East and Africa and eventually Europe.
Russia’s hesitation is owing to the
fear of losing defence and economic markets in India. However, seeing the
bright scope of CPEC and motivated by its age old quest for warm waters, Russia
will sooner than later abandon India because of Indo-US military agreements and
gravitate towards CPEC. Recent developments have given a loud message to India
that Russia is tilting towards Pakistan.
One of the reasons of Russia’s tilt
is worsening security situation in Afghanistan which has turned into a big mess
and is beyond the capacity of USA and Ghani regime to sort it out. Growing
presence of Daesh in Afghanistan has alarmed Moscow since the declared
objective of this branch of Daesh is to re-establish ancient Khorasan, which
comprised of parts of Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. The runaway
TTP leaders Fazlullah, Khalid Omar and several others have tagged their names
with Khorasani and have made Kunar-Nuristan as the base camp for the making of Khorasan.
Russia knows that CIA, Mossad and RAW
are secretly aligned with Daesh and are killing two birds with one stone.
Threat of Daesh has impelled Russia to evince greater interest in Afghan
affairs and there are reports that it is supplying arms to the Taliban to
enable them to tackle the new threat.Some are saying, that Moscow might
intervene in Afghanistan the way it had intervened in Syria on the pretext of
grappling with Daesh.
If so, it might trigger proxy war
between the two big powers which will prolong the agony of people of
Afghanistan as well as of Pakistan because of the spillover effect. This is exactly what India wants so as to retain
its nuisance value in Afghanistan.
Will Trump get enticed and blindly
jump into the same inferno from which Obama had extracted 1, 30,000 troops in
December 2014 with great difficulty, and lose whatever prestige the US is left
withby reinforcing failure?
Or else, he will stick to his policy
of curtailing defence expenditure and pullout the 12000 strong Resolute Support
Group and stop paying $8.1 billion annually to the corrupt regime in Kabul and
inept Afghan security forces?
Or he takes a saner decision by
making USA part of Russia-China-Pakistan grouping to arrive at a political
settlement in Afghanistan and also opt to join CPEC and improve the economy of
USA?
Making a realistic appraisal of the
ground situation, the last option seems more viable and profitable for USA,
while the second option is dicey, and the first option will spell disaster.
|