Afghan President Hamid Karzai was blowing hot and cold on the national media the other day at a function in Kabul. Do not damage the country's "core national interests" while covering the protests against Afghanistan's neighbours, he was quoted warning the media outlets. Ostensibly his ire was provoked by the screaming coverage of the recent anti-Iran protests in Kabul by the Afghan media networks, whereas it is widely believed that his own regime had actually sponsored those demonstrations.
Notably, the Iranians have lately incurred his anger for inviting a delegation of the Afghan Taliban and holding talks with them. He is doubly miffed. Although his spokesmen have taken the public stance that Tehran had unacceptably bypassed Kabul while inviting the Taliban peace interlocutors, Karzai's real frustration is that the Taliban have as yet not softened a wee bit their stiff stance that in no event would they talk to him as they consider him just a lame duck puppet of the US-led occupiers of Afghanistan.
Whatever it is, one wonders where does disappear Karzai's this sense of outrage when it comes to Pakistan, which too is Afghanistan's neighbour, and indeed the one that has irrefutably suffered devastatingly over almost the past three decades on account of Afghanistan. Any casual foreign visitor to Afghanistan is taken aback by the amount of venom that the Afghan outlets, both electronic and print, spew against Pakistan on daily basis. Yet this poisonous propaganda has never ever enraged Karzai. Indeed, much of the grist for this smear media campaign is provided by the hostile outpourings of Karzai himself and his minions down the ladder.
The problem is that Karzai is still to come to terms with the objective ground realities prevalent in Afghanistan and has picked on Pakistan perennially as a punching bag for his endless frustrations. Although he knows that the US-led occupation armies have utterly failed in doing down the Taliban over the past 12 years, yet he is loath to concede that the Taliban are not only aggressively resurgent but in actuality in real control of much of the country. By every independent account, whole lot of territories not only in the south and the east but even in parts of the west and the north of the country are under their sway. They even are running their own parallel administrations in various areas. So much so, even occupation armies at places live ensconced in their fortified bases after buying peace from the Taliban.
But Karzai in total defiance of these compelling ground realities still lives in his own fancy world of make-believe. Still in the spell of his self-woven myths, he is compulsively wont to lay every ill of Afghanistan at the door of Pakistan. As the ousted Taliban were regrouping right inside Afghanistan in their unsecured strongholds, he kept training his guns at Pakistan, instead of compelling his US-led allies to send out their occupation armies to fight out the Taliban rumps and control the territories. He invented the whole lot of fictional charades like Quetta Shura, Taliban's sanctuaries in Pakistani territory, and what not. And as he kept on trumpeting his charades shrilly on his own as well as at the behest of his foreign buddies to malign Pakistan internationally, the Taliban kept all the while regrouping, retraining, rearming and becoming fighting fit in their stronghold. And in time they sprang up and in no time they spread out their sway to most parts of the country. They are now not just resurgent, but factually victorious, as the occupiers have visibly failed to vanquish them. And that has brought another frustration to Karzai, for which too he has made Pakistan his punching bag. Since the Taliban have shot down derisively every move for getting them into talks with him, he has directed his entire anger against Pakistan. Since he has become the prisoner of his own propaganda that the Taliban are in Pakistan's pocket, he thinks Pakistan is not herding them on to sit across the negotiating table with him.
So blinded is he by his own propaganda that he is unable too see that the Taliban entrenched right inside their own land, that they are conclusively turning out to be victorious, and that they are accordingly their own masters, the masters of their own wills. Pakistan cannot hold them by the ears and drag them on to the negotiating table. At best, it could persuade them. But they themselves will decide. No vilification campaign against Pakistan can obviate this reality. This Karzai must imbibe fully. And just he has berated his national media for anti-Iran campaigns, the same stroke he should play for Pakistan. It too is Afghanistan's neighbour; indeed a neighbour that has stood by the Afghans in their dire hours of tribulation and adversity.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Karzai’s cheekiness
Afghan President Hamid Karzai was blowing hot and cold on the national media the other day at a function in Kabul. Do not damage the country's "core national interests" while covering the protests against Afghanistan's neighbours, he was quoted warning the media outlets. Ostensibly his ire was provoked by the screaming coverage of the recent anti-Iran protests in Kabul by the Afghan media networks, whereas it is widely believed that his own regime had actually sponsored those demonstrations.
Notably, the Iranians have lately incurred his anger for inviting a delegation of the Afghan Taliban and holding talks with them. He is doubly miffed. Although his spokesmen have taken the public stance that Tehran had unacceptably bypassed Kabul while inviting the Taliban peace interlocutors, Karzai's real frustration is that the Taliban have as yet not softened a wee bit their stiff stance that in no event would they talk to him as they consider him just a lame duck puppet of the US-led occupiers of Afghanistan.
Whatever it is, one wonders where does disappear Karzai's this sense of outrage when it comes to Pakistan, which too is Afghanistan's neighbour, and indeed the one that has irrefutably suffered devastatingly over almost the past three decades on account of Afghanistan. Any casual foreign visitor to Afghanistan is taken aback by the amount of venom that the Afghan outlets, both electronic and print, spew against Pakistan on daily basis. Yet this poisonous propaganda has never ever enraged Karzai. Indeed, much of the grist for this smear media campaign is provided by the hostile outpourings of Karzai himself and his minions down the ladder.
The problem is that Karzai is still to come to terms with the objective ground realities prevalent in Afghanistan and has picked on Pakistan perennially as a punching bag for his endless frustrations. Although he knows that the US-led occupation armies have utterly failed in doing down the Taliban over the past 12 years, yet he is loath to concede that the Taliban are not only aggressively resurgent but in actuality in real control of much of the country. By every independent account, whole lot of territories not only in the south and the east but even in parts of the west and the north of the country are under their sway. They even are running their own parallel administrations in various areas. So much so, even occupation armies at places live ensconced in their fortified bases after buying peace from the Taliban.
But Karzai in total defiance of these compelling ground realities still lives in his own fancy world of make-believe. Still in the spell of his self-woven myths, he is compulsively wont to lay every ill of Afghanistan at the door of Pakistan. As the ousted Taliban were regrouping right inside Afghanistan in their unsecured strongholds, he kept training his guns at Pakistan, instead of compelling his US-led allies to send out their occupation armies to fight out the Taliban rumps and control the territories. He invented the whole lot of fictional charades like Quetta Shura, Taliban's sanctuaries in Pakistani territory, and what not. And as he kept on trumpeting his charades shrilly on his own as well as at the behest of his foreign buddies to malign Pakistan internationally, the Taliban kept all the while regrouping, retraining, rearming and becoming fighting fit in their stronghold. And in time they sprang up and in no time they spread out their sway to most parts of the country. They are now not just resurgent, but factually victorious, as the occupiers have visibly failed to vanquish them. And that has brought another frustration to Karzai, for which too he has made Pakistan his punching bag. Since the Taliban have shot down derisively every move for getting them into talks with him, he has directed his entire anger against Pakistan. Since he has become the prisoner of his own propaganda that the Taliban are in Pakistan's pocket, he thinks Pakistan is not herding them on to sit across the negotiating table with him.
So blinded is he by his own propaganda that he is unable too see that the Taliban entrenched right inside their own land, that they are conclusively turning out to be victorious, and that they are accordingly their own masters, the masters of their own wills. Pakistan cannot hold them by the ears and drag them on to the negotiating table. At best, it could persuade them. But they themselves will decide. No vilification campaign against Pakistan can obviate this reality. This Karzai must imbibe fully. And just he has berated his national media for anti-Iran campaigns, the same stroke he should play for Pakistan. It too is Afghanistan's neighbour; indeed a neighbour that has stood by the Afghans in their dire hours of tribulation and adversity.
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