Afghanistan easily qualifies to be one of the foremost strategic challenges that the international community faces today. Even as the western powers are contemplating the withdrawal of their troops from this warn-torn Southern Asian country, the situation in Afghanistan is nowhere close to stability: the law and order situation is out of control, production of opium has gone up manifold contributing 90 percent of the world's total, Taliban is on the way back, and the people of Afghanistan do not see any light at the end of the tunnel.
There is, therefore, no doubt that Afghanistan has the potential to adversely affect the stability in the Southern Asian region and beyond. While that is true, the reverse is perhaps even closer to truth. Everyone has blamed Afghanistan of being the epicenter of all that is wrong in the region, but not many people try to understand that one of the major reasons why Afghanistan is what it is today – war-torn, impoverished, unimaginably obscurantist etc. – is because the counties in the region – Russia, Pakistan, Iran, India, China and the US even though it doesn’t belong to the region – have been making use of the Afghan theater for their geopolitical games.
In other words, even if Afghanistan attains stability tomorrow with no internecine warfare and Taliban ideology, the countries in the region are unlikely to stop interfering in Afghanistan. Let’s examine this argument a little further. First of all, it is necessary to remember that there was relative peace and stability in Afghanistan prior to the Soviet intervention in that country: the country was progressive and modern with Afghan girls able to get secular education. It was the Soviet intervention in 1979, the Mujahideen war thereafter (designed by the CIA, funded by the Americans and Saudis and locally coordinated and organised by Pakistan’s ISI), the rise of the Taliban in the mid-1990s with active support from Pakistan, the civil war between Taliban regime and the Northern Alliance supported by Russia, India and Iran and others, and the ongoing hide and seek by these very same regional powers in Afghanistan that has reached Afghanistan where it is today.

Let’s focus on the present. There are at least three ways in which the region’s geopolitical rivalry is spilling over into Afghanistan: a) Indo-Pak rivalry and its spill-over into Afghanistan, b) Sino-Pak strategic partnership and its impact on Afghanistan, and c) Iran-India-US conundrum and its impact on Afghanistan.

India-Pakistan rivalry in Afghanistan has been prompted by a combination of the Pakistani thinking that India is working against Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan and the Indian attitude that India has a right to be consulted on the future of Afghanistan. Traditionally India adopted a three-pronged strategy towards Afghanistan. One, there is no such thing as moderate Taliban; one is either a Taliban or moderate. There should be no attempts at reconciling with the Taliban. Two, Indian stakes in Afghanistan were too precious to give up given the security implications that political developments in Afghanistan would have for India. The third aspect of the Indian thinking on Afghanistan, even though it existed only in some quarters, has been that India should project military force into Afghanistan in order to safeguard its vital security interests there. Even though it can be argued that India is perhaps rethinking its strategy in Afghanistan, which reflect in the apparent climb-down from the puritanical lines that India took towards Afghanistan, it is also true that much of this rethinking is still to be put into practice or conveyed to Pakistan so as to moderate the anti-India stance that Pakistan has been consistently talking vis-à-vis Indian presence in Afghanistan.

The Sino-Pak strategic partnership also has implications for Afghanistan. On the one hand, China’s ‘all-weather friendship’ with Pakistan has emboldened the latter to pursue its interests in Afghanistan with more belligerence.  On the other hand, China has deep economic interests in Afghanistan which are clearly aided by Pakistan. In other words, a neutral Afghanistan wherein everyone has an opportunity to pursue their interests would be less favorable to China than an Afghanistan where its partner Pakistan has definitive influence. It would help China to pursue its interests in Afghanistan in an unfettered way. Though China is content about gaining economic benefits from Afghanistan, it is clearly unwilling to partake in the political normalization of the country. By free-riding on the international community’s efforts in Afghanistan, China is certainly not behaving like a good neighbor!

The Iran-India-US conundrum also has impact on Afghanistan. While the US has been pushing New Delhi not to enter into any partnership - economic, military or strategic - with Iran, Iran is indeed a big stakeholder in the Afghan geopolitics and, in many ways, is an important cog in India’s Afghan and Central Asian grand strategies. Moreover, the international community, especially the US, needs to realize the importance of Iran in meeting one of its biggest challenges – Afghanistan.

The way forward
Even as the international community is negotiating peace among the various factions in Afghanistan, it also needs to convince the regional powers to refrain from interfering in Afghanistan for the road to a stable Afghanistan passes through the neighboring capitals. More specifically, India and Pakistan need to look for avenues to cooperate in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. China should be encouraged to look at Afghanistan not just as an economic opportunity and the international community needs to engage Iran and Russia in stabilizing Afghanistan.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:00:00 IST