Kamran Akhtar
In Afghanistan, the subsequent political and military transitions, led the western troops withdrawal during the year 2014 and emergence of an amalgamated but acceptable electoral procedure of electing the President and Chief Executive Officer. It was although a unique experiment, but the outcome was nothing but the failure of democracy. Experts, opine that from the very first day, the faulty system started wobbling but it was suppressed by the help of the foreign pressure, which ultimately resulted in the present form of the Afghan government.
It was widely believed that there would be more space available for the regional countries to garner the regional involvement for the much desired peace and stability in Afghanistan. As, the recent history shows, there is also no room for the peace in the regional countries and neigbbouring countries of Afghanistan, until and unless there is no peace in Afghanistan. The deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan has direct trickling effects, not only on the neighbours, but its circumference has also exponentially expanded to the western countries. Experts firmly believe that global peace could not be achieved, till the time, the intentionally lingered issues like Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq. Syria, Afghanistan and many others are not amicably resolved. An overview of all these issues, by sane minds, would safely conclude that in all above mentioned glaring issues, ultimately humanity suffers and silently witnessing the callus attitude of the living world. The case of Afghanistan is one of the worst and hard hit areas, where every person has a miserable story to tell, a story which confirms exploitations, in the name of religion, ethnicity, creed, cast, culture and language, etc. Actually these naturally occurring identities have been viciously exploited by wicked Afghan and foreign politicians.
Historically, basing on the local or regional leverages, the outer world or the so called uni-polar strong power exploited the available human resources of this region through enticing the will and wish of future peace and stability of the region. Its very astonishing and unbelievable fact that common Afghans and other nationalities were expertly exploited by arousing their love for land , family, tribe, country and above all the religion, by foreign mentors, which could otherwise don’t even fit in the frame of reference or having any rationale of presence in the region. There have been growing calls in recent years for regional actors to engage more practically with Afghanistan. Besides, the Afghan state has not yet proven so resilient which were earlier anticipated by the foreign powers, in the face of recent political and security challenges posed by Afghan Taliban. However, due to constant aid and guidance by the foreign countries, Afghan security forces are trying to enable themselves to independently take over and run the much anticipated role of securing the fragile country. However, it would be dependent on the political lot to offer their security forces the much needed resources to train and equip their security personnel to tackle and neutralize any opposition, like Taliban and Daesh. Some experts also opined that the initiatives for emphasizing Afghanistan’s strategic centrality to its neighbourhood, and its potential as a transport hub of energies, must be appreciated by the regional as well as extra regional countries to fulfill their energy requirements. Besides, certain steps to augment the already Chinese launched initiative of “one road one belt” must be planned and executed by incorporating all the regional and other interested countries, which may prove to be the supporter, not the spoilers of peace in the region.
Experts although term the prospects for collective engagement vis-à-vis Afghanistan remain generally poor, but China’s increasing diplomatic activity could have a positive impact given the common interests between China and the West in stability in Afghanistan. China being the most important regional actor for Afghanistan’s stability could also encourage the other powers to play a more constructive role, for example by supporting dialogue between the Taliban and the Afghan government. The effectiveness of regional engagement will depend, above all, on a domestic political settlement that includes an accommodation between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Since the International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan in Tokyo, in 2002, the country’s neighbours have been involved in numerous dialogues regarding its peace and stability. Encouraging regional ownership of the challenge, however, was not prioritized by the United States and other Western countries until after the 2011 announcement that they intended to complete their military withdrawal by the end of 2014. It is only in the past three or four years, therefore, at calls for the region to take greater collective responsibility for Afghanistan have intensified. This has been accompanied by warnings of the impact that chaos in the country would have on its neighbours. Advocates of regional engagement have also emphasized the potential economic benefits that would accrue from increased connectivity through a stable Afghanistan. Keeping the region engaged with Afghanistan is imperative for stability in the country and its neighbours. Several multilateral forums have provided some scope for international cooperation on Afghanistan. These include comparatively newly created groupings such as ‘Heart of Asia’ process (originally launched as the Istanbul Process in 2011), as well as more long-standing organizations such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). But for a variety of reasons, including their origins, remit and internal tensions, such grouping have had a limited impact. Besides, the recent incident of criticizing Pakistan over the collective failures of Afghanistan and Indian governments to shape some kind of stability or peace in Afghanistan has further degraded the already achieved progress of the peace efforts.
Experts believe that the said orchestrated drama against Pakistan was drafted to dilute the impact of Pakistan’s side of the story which would have proven the reality of Afghanistan and Indian government’s efforts to destabilize and defame Pakistan at such a prestigious forum. However, despite knowing the much expected response by India and Afghanistan, Pakistan truly represented and confirmed its commitment and strong positive role for their Afghan brethren in Afghanistan and all cross the Globe. Pakistan also confirmed that Pakistan will always support any peace and reconciliation efforts of Afghanistan which ultimately may result into Afghan own and Afghan led, peace process.
