Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been in the US to discuss the progress of Washington's new strategy, which aims at the reintegration of the Taliban foot soldiers through monetary and other incentives, and reconciliation with the leadership.
After three days of negotiations, which included an extraordinarily long - nearly three hours - meeting with President Barack Obama, he appeared at the US Institute of Peace on Thursday alongside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, where he said that as regards reconciliation with the Taliban leadership, it "is beyond reach and mostly in our neighbouring Pakistan, where we'll have Pakistan also involved and a lot of regional questions will be involved there."
Some observers in Washington have attached great significance to these remarks, noting that until recently the Afghan President was opposed to giving any role to Pakistan in the reconciliation process. They have gone as far as to describe Karzai's willingness to involve Pakistan as a major concession from him - a view not truly reflective of the ground realities.
Obama has announced his decision to start troop drawdown from Afghanistan from July next year, and to handover more and more security responsibilities to the Afghan army. For this to happen, the integration and reconciliation plan must make progress. It is no secret that Pakistan has old ties - that have remained in place due to physical proximity and the affected tribes' shared ethnic and blood bonds - with some of the influential Taliban leaders. Hence whether or not Karzai likes it, Islamabad is indispensable to the success of the new US strategy to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan.
In fact, Karzai himself is no stranger to Pakistan. Like millions of other Afghan refugees, he too lived in this country for a number of years. Yet under his presidency, relations between the two countries have remained tense. They are far from cordial with the US as well. President Obama is known to have been at considerable unease with the Karzai government for its massive corruption. To make things worse, Karzai stole last year's presidential election, eliciting allegations of electoral fraud by no less than a person than the former deputy chief of UN mission in Kabul, Peter Galbraith.
In an apparent attempt to get back at his critics, Karzai recently irked Washington by hosting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Yet, in the run-up to his last year's reelection bid, reports suggested that both the US and Pakistan had wanted him to win, mainly because they knew him well; and also because he was the key candidate representing the majority Pashtoon population.
Pakistan figured prominently in the Obama-Karzai meeting. Obama later told journalists that they had discussed the importance of Afghanistan's neighbours supporting its sovereignty and security. In a more straightforward language that means that the neighbours should not vie for influence in post-war Afghanistan.
This is not only in Afghanistan's interest but also Pakistan's. Our foreign policy establishment must disabuse itself of its unrealistic and unreasonable desire of acquiring 'strategic depth' in that unfortunate country. Nonetheless, given its location and history, it would be only fair and necessary for Pakistan to ensure that post-war Afghanistan remains friendly towards it.
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