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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Tauseef Zahid, "Pakistan: Talibans and Geo-politics of Afghanistan," PakPoint Network, May 29, 2008.

The United States is approaching a paradigm shift regarding its policies toward Afghanistan and Pakistan because Washington has reached the conclusion that Pakistan is unable and/or unwilling to control the situation with the Taliban. The Bush administration is thus pressing ahead with a new policy of denying the Taliban sanctuary in Pakistan. This new policy is not constrained by concerns regarding Pakistani stability.

Background

Pakistan in many senses is an example of how absence of sincere leadership and solid vision results in loss of identity and direction for the nation. Once the direction is lost, outcome is the very purpose for that nation’s existence being lost. Quick glance at the history of Indo-Pak shows how Muslims of South-East-Asia are reduced to Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh etc from a position they collectively once enjoyed as rulers.

Whether Muslims acted at times as conquerors or governors when they made entry to the region from Sindh or from Khyber, with time the loss of direction open the way for the colonialism by Britain and other European powers, who divided the world into their sphere of influence, the continuation of their legacy meant creation of new nation-states out of Ottoman Caliphate, using vicious divide and rule.

The intensified movement for Pakistan by ‘Muslim’ League post-Khilafat movement was another attempt by the Muslims to make sense of their politics in the region and find that direction. The mixture of nationalism with Islam, demand of Kashmir as integral part of Pakistan but forsaking Delhi who until middle of eighteenth century was their capital and the division of India around artificial borders drawn in Whitehall in the form of Durand Line or Red-Cliff award made sure that the region will remain unstable strategically and politically artificial.

[...]

Last week, US in a bid to sabotage Waziristan Peace accord made a naked aggression by resorting to strike missiles on the Pakistani village of Damadola. As per the media reports more than 14 Muslims died while many were injured. America had committed such blatant aggressions more than three dozens times earlier within Pakistani territory killing hundreds of Muslims. In the last American attack on Damadola 80 students of the madressa died that also severely damaged the earlier Peace Accord. And at a time when again a Peace Accord is on card after the exchange of prisoners, America want to sabotage this agreement. However, after the martyrdom of our citizens, the masses strongly demand that the government immediately respond to this unprovoked American missile attacks in a blow for blow.

[...]

Now

The only way to stabilise the region in Pakistan favor is to expel NATO from Afghanistan. Islamabad then should work to help create a Pakistan friendly government in Afghanistan but unlike in the past, leaving Taliban government to its own devices, this time Pakistan should work to stabilise the government by taking part in infrastructure rebuilding, schools, training of civilians, bureaucracy and military. This would allow a long term partnership between the two countries. Eventually Pakistan should work to create a union between the two countries as fundamentally people of both lands share a common belief.

Islamabad must work to take leadership in the region moving towards Eurasia. A survey supported by the US Department of Homeland Security and conducted by the University of Maryland between December 2006 and February 2007, revealed that the majority of Muslims in Pakistan held a goal “to unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or Caliphate”.

Countries bordering Afghanistan i.e. Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are ruled over by the brutal dictators. Any sincere move by Pakistan which put forward the case for Islam is going to give Pakistan a leading role in the region. This would mean not only gaining leadership from Indian, Bangladeshi, and Chinese Muslims located in the Xingjian province and liberating the Afghan Muslims from occupation but also long term stability in the region.

Pakistan must move away from protecting her interests half heartedly. The policy of training militants in the region, ‘slow bleeding’ of India and supporting US and Talibans side by side is an outdated and dangerous strategy with no use in the present reality. With Khilafah system in place, the systems of Islam, will allow the Muslims of the region to unite politically, gain representative government which is only accountable to its citizens with independent judiciary and the ownership of energy and food resources to its people rather than to few capitalist.

Read the whole article here =>
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