Russia’s IS alarm
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif and Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov echoed each other’s positions in a joint press
conference in Moscow on February 20, 2018. They announced the setting up of a
commission for promoting military cooperation while expressing alarm over the
growing footprint of Islamic State (IS) in Afghanistan. Even more alarming to
both sides was the seeming indifference of the US-led NATO forces to this
development in Afghanistan. The alarm was prompted by the possibility of IS
deploying near the Pakistan border in the case of Asif, and in the north of
Afghanistan for Lavrov. Asif feared IS could try to destabilise neighbouring Pakistan
while Lavrov was concerned that the IS presence could spill over into Central
Asia and eventually Russia itself. The former was voicing concerns at a new
element of terrorism finding its way into Pakistan while the latter, whose
country has overcome a Chechnyan insurgency after years of bloodshed, sees the
resource base and ability of IS to recruit locals on a franchise basis as a new
and real threat to the region as a whole. Both had complaints about the US
failure in Afghanistan. Asif resented Pakistan being scapegoated for
Washington’s failure, Lavrov reiterated the received wisdom that only a
negotiated settlement through talks offered any hope of a solution to the
Afghanistan quagmire. Lavrov went on to describe US President Donald Trump’s
‘new’ strategy for Afghanistan as lacking potential. That strategy is playing
out as cutting off civil and security assistance to Pakistan and forcing the
Taliban to the negotiating table through hoped for victory on the battlefield. There
is little doubt that the US embarked upon mission impossible when it invaded
and occupied Afghanistan after 9/11. The inherently difficult enterprise of
subjugating Afghanistan, which has historically fought invaders to a standstill
and retreat through irregular warfare, proved even more perilous because the
Afghan Taliban enjoyed refuge inside Pakistan.
The internal situation for the unity government of Afghan
President Ashraf Ghani is not bright either. One northern governor has gone
after initially defying the president, another is sticking to his guns and
refusing to go. The internal fissures of the government add to the angst over loss
of about 40 percent territory to Taliban control. If Bush invaded Afghanistan
without knowing what he was getting into, that initial mistake was compounded
by Obama’s announcing a major troop withdrawal prematurely. Neither event
deterred the Afghan Taliban from pursuing their protracted guerrilla war
strategy. Despite IS being viewed by the Taliban as an interloper in
Afghanistan, there has been little effort by the Americans or Kabul to try and
take advantage of this rivalry in the insurgent camp. Nothing describes the US
approach better than Einstein’s famous saying: doing the same thing over and
over again (even more intensely) and expecting different results. Overthrowing
the Taliban government through shock and awe has proved easier than winkling
out the insurgency or even being able to point towards significant progress,
militarily or politically. In the latter sphere falls the consensus that only a
negotiated settlement can end the Afghan conflict, thereby denying IS the
fertile soil into which it is inserting itself. How to bring that about
however, is a thorny conundrum. Pakistan has been simultaneously criticised for
allegedly supporting the Afghan Taliban while being pressured to bring them to
the negotiating table. Given the developments on the Afghan front in recent
days with the Taliban and IS claiming deadly attacks in Kabul and the US
retaliating by cutting off aid to Pakistan and threatening a more muscular
battlefield approach, Washington lacks negotiating peace partners, certainly
the Taliban, arguably even Islamabad now. If the conflict does not yield to
peace negotiations because of the tangled web of competing interests, the
Afghan war, already the longest in the US’s history, seems destined to
continue, a situation precisely that has let IS in the door in the first place,
and whose continuance is the best IS can hope for after its defeat and retreat
from Iraq and Syria.
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