This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed 'Mullah Mansour exits' carried by the newspaper yesterday. The writer, Rashed Rahman, has made a profound argument on the Afghan conundrum. He has concluded it by saying that "As to the Afghanistan conundrum, peace seems dead in the water. Pakistan must now brace for the fallout. This may well include a resurgence of terrorism by the TTP, perhaps aided and abetted by the angry Afghan Taliban. The lesson, once again, is that a people that oppresses other people can never truly be free itself. Our sorry tale of long standing interventions in Afghanistan and their probable cost now only underlines that lesson emphatically."
The writer has perhaps overlooked a strong reality in relation to the Pak-Afghan relationship: interventions have been warranted by numerous imperatives. For example, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had clearly threatened the sovereignty of Pakistan. In the case of the Taliban rule too, Pakistan had a major stake in peace in Afghanistan. The Durand Line, Pashtoon populations on both sides of border, the water from the Kabul River and perceived or real threat of creation of a 'Greater Pushtoonistan' or 'Mini-Afghania' do constitute Pakistan's major interests insofar as Islamabad-Kabul relationship is concerned.