Posted on Sep 7, 2021
Is Pakistan the victor in Afghanistan, or a part of its spoils?
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Posted 3 y ago
Responses: 3
Interesting. Being written from an Indian perspective (for a predominantly Indian audience), the author is clearly relying on an unstated assumption that Pakistan's strategic goals regarding Afghanistan are similar to what an Indian government would try to achieve in Pakistan's place.
That's a major flaw in his analysis, because it ignores the deeply cultural nature of Pakistan's actions regarding Afghanistan for the last 4 decades. General Zia's still-enduring primary goal of driving degenerately secular culture (and government) out of the Islamic lands has always carried greater weight in Pakistan's Afghan strategy than seeking approval from non-Islamic governments.
Like the U.S., Pakistan cares less about what Afghanistan becomes than what it mustn't become, and for the Pakis an increasingly secular Afghanistan is intolerable. Almost as intolerable would be an Iranian-dominated Afghanistan. Measure their decisions by a policy of containment directed at non-believers and Persians and not only do their decisions make more sense, it looks like they're achieving their goals.
That's a major flaw in his analysis, because it ignores the deeply cultural nature of Pakistan's actions regarding Afghanistan for the last 4 decades. General Zia's still-enduring primary goal of driving degenerately secular culture (and government) out of the Islamic lands has always carried greater weight in Pakistan's Afghan strategy than seeking approval from non-Islamic governments.
Like the U.S., Pakistan cares less about what Afghanistan becomes than what it mustn't become, and for the Pakis an increasingly secular Afghanistan is intolerable. Almost as intolerable would be an Iranian-dominated Afghanistan. Measure their decisions by a policy of containment directed at non-believers and Persians and not only do their decisions make more sense, it looks like they're achieving their goals.
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