{"id":2193,"date":"2014-11-23T22:15:59","date_gmt":"2014-11-23T16:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=2193"},"modified":"2014-11-23T22:19:08","modified_gmt":"2014-11-23T16:49:08","slug":"impact-of-us-withdrawal-from-afghnsthan-on-south-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/impact-of-us-withdrawal-from-afghnsthan-on-south-asia\/","title":{"rendered":"Impact of US Withdrawal From Afghnsthan On South Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>

Z.G. MUHAMMAD<\/p>\n

Just one and a half month from now, 2014 with all its politics will be relegated to the pages of history. Three years back Washington had announced that from July 2011 NATO and U S troops will start withdrawing from Afghanistan and by December 2014 the withdrawal would be complete. From the security point, the decision being significant the wait for the lost contingent of US troops departing from Kabul started in South Asia in general and India and Pakistan in particular started from 2014. The announcement had generated lots of debates across the world. Many experts looked at withdrawal announcement with a \u2018deep sense of pessimism\u2019 and expressed their anxiety at the decision- the worry was more perceptible in the neighbouring countries particularly India, Pakistan and Iran. The decision had generated a host of questions. Once the transition is complete will the Taliban make a comeback? And what will be impact of the changeover on the domestic and international politics. In the changed situation \u2018how will important regional players place themselves\u2019? India and Pakistan in their bid to gain a strategic foothold in Afghanistan and influence policies of Kabul have been for past couple of years engaged in a game of outmanoeuvring each other. This game with India enjoying ascendancy during the rule of Hamid Karzai had to a good extent worked as a spoiler in the relations between the two countries- and also negatively impacted composite dialogue. In 2008, a debate had been generated by a prestigious US journal Foreign Affairs after it had published an article \u201cFrom Great Game to Grand Bargain – Ending chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan\u2019 by Barnett R Rubin and Ahmed Rashid. The duo had asserted that peace to Afghanistan passed through the gateway of Kashmir. This statement had something to do with their belief in Obama\u2019s statements during 2008 election campaign about Kashmir and his vision for South Asia. And once in office as one can make out from Ahmed Rashid\u2019s book, \u2018Pakistan on the Brink – the future of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the West\u2019, he \u2018in fact lost sight of important strategic issues in South Asia. And after the death of Richard Holbrook, Obama\u2019s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Kashmir was totally out of the America-Pakistan and Afghanistan policy. Building on threat of Osama in Kashmir and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld buying the story, New Delhi succeeded in carrying out diplomatic coup against Islamabad\u2019, to quote an American Professor Akbar Ahmed, \u2018In spite of UN resolutions passed over half a century ago promising a free and fair plebiscite that would allow Kashmir to choose its future with India or Pakistan, Kashmir remains divided between the two. By linking Kashmir to the war on terror, India was able to translate the move into several important economic, military, political and nuclear agreements with the United States. As a consequences Kashmir was effectively put in deep freeze, India\u2019s traditional foe Pakistan was sidelined, and India was recognized as a major player on the world stage.\u2019 (The Thistle and The Drone page 259). It is a different debate, how and why fragmented Kashmir leadership embroiled in their own contradiction and Pakistan caught up in the whirlpool of Pervez Musharraf\u2019s \u2018individualistic\u2019 Kashmir policy failed to articulate a forceful counter narrative. However, the question remains will Kashmir problem be back on the centre stage, after the total withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Seeing the \u2018region to be moving inexorably towards greater conflict and contradiction rather than peaceful resolution and reconciliation\u2019 Ahmed Rashid observes, \u2018by both action and inaction the United States has contributed significantly to the regions dangerous instability. The Obama administration has failed to detail its aims in the region beyond 2014, thereby giving rise to speculations and conspiracy theories.\u2019 The United States after departing from Afghanistan obviously will not lose its total interest in the region but undoubtedly it is leaving behind an \u2018unstable region\u2019 with three countries India, Pakistan and Iran staking claim for having a role in Afghanistan. More than Tehran, it has been New Delhi and Islamabad that have been contesting for having a greater say in the affairs of the beleaguered country, with impending threat of Taliban still looming large. During the entire rule of Hamid Karzai the war of attrition between the two countries was high- and each day added to their acrimony. Pakistan’s main concern was India training Afghan soldiers and military presence in Afghanistan. It has been expressing concern about India\u2019s involvement in Waziristan more particularly it \u2018having seven consulates just across the border for a population of five thousand when it has only two consulates in UK for several hundred thousand Indians.\u2019 There has been a whiff of change in Afghanistan-Pakistan relation after end of Hamid Karzai\u2019s rule. Pakistan sees an opportunity in the installation of the new government \u2018to coordinate closely with its neighbour and remove any misgivings between the two. Islamabad lost no time in signaling \u2018all possible help – economic, security and political and supportive role in political reconciliation between Kabul and Taliban\u2019. This trigged spurt in diplomatic activities between the two capitals, culminating in a two-day visit of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to Islamabad immediately, after the visit of Pakistan Army chief to Kabul. The visit unlike the visits of Hamid Karzai started at a \u2018positive note\u2019. Political commentators see the visit of Ghani to \u201cthe GHQ in Rawalpindi soon after landing in Islamabad \u2013 an unprecedented move since it is rare that a visiting head of state stops over at the military headquarters.\u201d The improved relations between Kabul and Islamabad will be beginning of<\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Z.G. MUHAMMAD
\nJust one and a half month from now, 2014 with all its politics will be relegated to the pages of history. Three years back Washington had announced that from July 2011 NATO and U S troops will start withdrawing from Afghanistan and by December 2014 the withdrawal would be complete. From the security point, the decision being significant the wait for the lost contingent of US troops departing from Kabul started in South Asia in general and India and Pakistan in particular started from 2014. The announcement had generated lots of debates across the world. Many experts looked at withdrawal announcement with a \u2018deep sense of pessimism\u2019 and expressed their anxiety at the decision- the worry was more perceptible in the neighbouring countries particularly India, Pakistan and Iran. The decision had generated a host of questions. Once the transition is complete will the Taliban make a comeback? And what …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editors-take"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2194,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193\/revisions\/2194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}