Pakistan - Nisar’s follies

In the fallout of the Bababer base attack, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar continues his perplexing trend of making counterproductive grandstanding statements. Talking to a group of reporters, he repeated his claim that other than the five attackers identified as Pakistanis, the ones who could not be identified were indeed “foreign”. He further insisted that the investigations had confirmed that the attack originated from Afghan soil and that since the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had admitted responsibility for the attack, this clearly revealed that the TTP was based in Afghanistan. While he did promise that the Pakistan government would share proof of the attackers’ identity, associates and modus operandi as gleaned from the investigation with the Afghanistan government, he tampered the message of coordination by launching yet another salvo towards Kabul. In his bid to appear tough and uncompromising to the audience at home, Nisar boldly made a highly dubious claim that Pakistan’s military operation in North Waziristan has ensured that infiltration of militants from Pakistani soil into Afghan territory had nearly stopped but the reverse was not true, and, according to him, this was the result of Kabul’s inaction. Even if one accepts that the ongoing military operation has managed to effectively reign in the infamously porous Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the North Waziristan region, the absurdity of Nisar’s declaration is obvious to anyone who looks at a map between the two countries because the border between the two countries runs for thousands of kilometres and remains equally porous and unmanageable in the other areas, for example in Balochistan where the Afghan Taliban’s Quetta Shura is sitting. The bizarre statements on the border do not end there, as Nisar pushes for a self-evidently unworkable idea: fencing the thousands of kilometres long border to curb the crossings. The cost of such an endeavour and the impossibility of keeping it under watch at all times in all areas seem to be lost on the Interior Minister.

Nisar seems to be pushing the responsibility of dealing with the TTP primarily onto the shoulders of Afghanistan’s embattled government in a language that paints Pakistan as a victim with no responsibility in the creation of the TTP. Chaudhry Nisar did, however, rule out the possibility of Pakistan launching an operation or airstrikes inside Afghan territory to the relief of many observers, as such a foolhardy endeavour that violated Afghanistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would have permanently damaged any chance of rebuilding trust and coordination between the countries, and would have exposed Pakistan to a new military front. While it is a relief to see Pakistan back down from this contemplated bout of adventurism, the barbed rhetoric of one of the government’s premier ministers is only serving to exacerbate the gulf between the two countries at a time when the most sensible course of action to fight terrorism is for the two countries to converge to bridge the gaps in their surveillance apparatus and get rid of the discord readily exploited by the TTP to carry out its operations. It is difficult to foresee such an eventuality if Nisar persists with undercutting every statement he makes on the war against terrorism with veiled comments about Kabul being in bed with India, thereby playing to the conspiracy-hungry gallery in Pakistan, which is all too eager to pin the blame for all of Pakistan’s ailments on the elusive 'foreign hand'. The Pakistan government’s paranoia about an Afghanistan partnering up with India to the detriment of Pakistan reveals that they are still stuck in the recent past when Hamid Karzai was the Afghan president. As soon as Karzai’s successor, Ashraf Ghani, was elected he extended an olive branch to Pakistan and every political action he took until July of this year indicated that he was sincerely committed to establishing good ties with Pakistan and reducing the trust deficit between the two countries. Pakistan should recognize this, even at this belated stage, and seek ways to repair the damage. Lambasting Afghanistan at every opportunity is a questionable strategy, especially since Pakistan repeatedly complains about Afghanistan doing the same. Pakistan’s continual game of playing victim also rings hollow, since its decades-long interference in Afghanistan has played a huge role in Kabul’s current reduced status and the ailments of Afghanistan. By refusing to acknowledge this responsibility and by doubling down on a rhetorical assault, Pakistan is not doing its fair share to resuscitate the relationship. Allowing this dispute to persist is harmful to the security of both countries.