Far more important than the empty ceremonial pageantry that was on display when the Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, arrived in Islamabad for a two-day visit last week was his statement, "We will not permit the past to destroy the future." That is as it should be, but the past is often jealous of the future and holds it in a vice-like grip. This is what the two countries will have to overcome. It will not be easy despite what their leaders may say.
At the joint press conference with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on November 15, Ashraf Ghani was uncommonly effusive: "We have overcome obstacles of 13 years in three days." Shortly afterwards he was no less ebullient on Twitter saying that in ten years he envisaged the relationship between the two countries to be a replication of the equation between France and Germany. The European archrivals had cast aside the bitter hostilities of the previous centuries and had replaced confrontation with close cooperation.
The prime minister of Pakistan was quick to rally around, and, in a similarly exultant take on the Ghani visit, spoke about the accords that had been concluded. These ranged from the improvement and establishment of infrastructure including road and possible rail links, augmentation of trade and investment, collaboration in the energy sector, and, above all the recognition that the overarching threat that the two countries encounter is from terrorism which necessitates close security coordination and perhaps even defence cooperation.
In a masterfully measured, though admittedly a trifle verbose and repetitive comment, Ghani elaborated, "We have begun a comprehensive dialogue on security so that all dimensions of our mutual security can be discussed, can be delineated, benchmarked processes can be arrived to build confidence...I think our common understanding of new threats which will enable us to delineate pathways where actions will be concrete and speak louder than words."
If actions 'speak louder than words,' then the optics of the visit said it all. Ghani deviated from the stultifying norms of established protocol by heading straight to the GHQ for talks with the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Raheel Sharif.
Officials in Islamabad were at pains to explain that the prime minister was out of the country at the time. But whether or not Nawaz Sharif was on one of his notoriously frequent foreign jaunts is beside the point. In keeping with the customary usages of diplomatic practice, Ashraf Ghani should have first met the political leadership - in this case the thoroughly bored president of Pakistan - after which officials, including the COAS, could have called on him.
However Ghani's decision to begin his maiden visit to Islamabad by meeting the army chief was understandable because terrorism poses the foremost threat to the security of the two countries, and, it is the armed forces of Pakistan that have done more than any other in the world to combat this hideous hydra-headed monster that has wrought havoc in the region. The enormity of the challenge is evident from the Global Terrorism Index 2014 collated recently by the internationally reputed Institute for Economics and Peace.
The findings show that after Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan rank second and third respectively as the primary victims of terrorism. According to the study, there were 1,933 terrorist outrages in Pakistan last year which resulted in 2,345 fatalities while 5,035 people, mostly civilians, were injured. This represents a stunning 37 per cent increase in the number of deaths and a 28 per cent rise in injuries over 2012.
The statistics for Afghanistan are even more gruesome. Ashraf Ghani, who ranked second last year in an international survey of the world's 100 top intellectuals, undoubtedly recognises that so long as the region is destabilised by recurrent incidents of terrorism the hope for self-sustained growth and development will never materialise.
He was, therefore, probably not exaggerating when he told the media in Islamabad that "Pakistan is an important pillar of Afghanistan's foreign policy." What he did not say but implied by his visit to the GHQ was that the Pakistan Army would play a pivotal role in defining the emerging contours of the Pakistan-Afghanistan equation.
This was intended as a tribute to the armed forces of the country and, in particular, to the soldiers at the battle front. Since the launch of Operation Zarb-e-Azb on June 15, they have fought relentlessly against the TTP and its affiliates in the rugged and forbidding terrain of North Waziristan.
They have battled on through the scorching heat of summer and their resolve is undiminished with the onset of a cruel winter. The theatre of the raging war has been broadened with the start of Operation Khyber 1 earlier this month. Terrorist outfits ensconced in the area have scampered away mostly across the border into Afghanistan.
The latest statistics show that in the last five months, 83 young men in uniform have fallen in combat and hundreds have been permanently maimed. Their selfless sacrifice calls to mind the speech of Winston Churchill on August 20, 1940 in which he referred to the pilots of the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain against the German Luftwaffe, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
The airmen knew that most of them would never come back but that was the price that had to be paid to stave off the Nazi invasion of Britain. Neither do Pakistani soldiers have the least doubt that the survival of their country hinges on the irreversible defeat of terrorism and that many of them will never return home from the battlegrounds of the tribal region.
As a consequence not only have terrorist incidents in the country fallen by an impressive 68 per cent but Afghan extremist outfits, such as the formidable Haqqani Network entrenched in the area, have also been severely mauled and disoriented. This has also been acknowledged by the Americans. In a Pentagon-hosted video briefing on November 04, Lt-Gen Joseph Anderson, a top commander of the US-led Nato forces in Afghanistan, conceded: "the Haqqani Network is now fractured and that's based pretty much on the Pakistani operations in North Waziristan this entire summer and fall."
On Thursday (November 20), even the Russian defence minister, General Kuzuhgetovic Shoygu, who was on a brief visit to Islamabad at the head of a 41-member delegation, appreciated the skill and expertise of the Pakistan armed forces in fighting terrorism. He then pointedly added, "The world community not only praises but wants to do business with Pakistan now." This was the clearest indication yet that significant Pakistan-Russia defence cooperation is on the anvil.
The 'new threats' that Ashraf Ghani spoke about at the joint media briefing are not really all that new and he knows this well. As far back as 1985 he completed a year of fieldwork as a Fulbright scholar researching madressahs in Pakistan. He is fully aware that it is from these seminaries which abound on both sides of the porous border between the two countries that the Afghan Taliban, the TTP and their affiliates derive their baneful ideology. They are one and the same and constitute a conglomerate of violent extremist groups motivated by a skewed concept of jihad.
It is all very well for the newly-elected Afghan president to conceptualise about the need for the two countries "to delineate pathways" in the fight against terror so as to ensure that "actions will be concrete and speak louder than words." But the rapidly cascading pace of events have already delineated the 'pathways'; what remains is action. The first step is that the Afghan army will have to move fast and decisively against the fleeing terrorists from Pakistan's tribal areas.
A 'hammer and anvil' mechanism in coordination with the Pakistan Army has to be put in place if the 'common threat' that Ghani spoke about is to be neutralised. The luxury of time is no longer available, especially because in less than six weeks foreign forces will have withdrawn from Afghanistan. Negotiations with the Taliban will only yield positive results if they are undertaken from a position of strength. This is the cardinal rule of diplomacy.
The writer is the publisher of Islamabad-based Criterion Quarterly.
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