The long-standing Afghan war has caused unparalleled damage to the people of Afghanistan.
The country has remained an untamable leviathan; the people of this war-torn country are yearning for peace and tranquillity but the hegemonic approach of Biden administration taking this war-ravaged country on the verge of further devastation that can have unintended consequences on the enduring peace of this region.
The latest statements of Afghan Taliban are the unequivocal massage for the white house that it will have far-reaching repercussions if US doesn’t pull its troops out of Afghanistan.
Almost 19 years ago, in the aftermath of the twin towers attack in New York on 9/11, the USA unleashed a war on terror on Afghanistan in its bid to eliminate Al-Qaeda network and to chase Osama bin Laden.
Despite pumping trillions of dollars into this war on terror in order to gain control over Afghanistan but for Americans, the mountainous terrain proved a hard nut to crack.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians became the victims of this war which was nothing more than a wild goose chase for the allied forces.
The land of Afghanistan became a safe and ideal haven for all those militant factions which were banished from their original place of birth.
For instance, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, IS and some other banned splinter groups took refuge in the land-locked territory of Afghanistan which, later on, wrecked havoc with the lives of thousands of people in various countries including Pakistan and Afghanistan itself.
Furthermore, Pakistan also bore the brunt of this war as it became a frontline state against the war on terror and consequently, paid a heavy price as TTP and other terrorists groups directed their guns towards Pakistan; more than 75000 innocents Pakistani civilians have lost their lives.
Pakistan army left no stone unturned to restore peace in the country and nearly 7000 pakistani amry personnel embraced martyrdom in this war on terror.
Even though the intra-Afghan dialogue could not have been possible without Pakistan’s help; no country did what has done to establish peace in Afghanistan.
There is no other country in the modern history which is a cause for enormous regional and international concern as Afghanistan.
A series of events in the last two weeks or so tend to trigger multilateral efforts to save Afghanistan from an impending disaster if a comprehensive agreement is not reached over the inter and intra-Afghan peace process prior to the deadline of final withdrawal of American forces from that war-raven country.
If a new version of peace plan mentioned in a letter written to the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the recent visit of American Defense Secretary Lyold Austin to Kabul reflect impatience on the part of Biden administration to wrap up his country’s longest war, but on its own terms, the Taliban and the Kabul regime are in an opposite direction as far as giving a new shape to the Doha agreement is concerned.
The Doha accord had ignited some hopes to bring the decades-long Afghan imbroglio to an end.
However, trust deficit coupled with the Taliban’s refusal to recognise the Afghanistan government and surging acts of insurgency could endanger the whole process.
[Muhammad Shahram Bhutto]
