Is a Pakistani-Afghan confederation achievable, or how are Pakistan, its patrons, and mercenaries moving toward Central Asia?
Author: Younus Negah, “Hashte sobh”
Archaeologists say that in the south of the Hindu Kush there was a very rich civilization in the past. Civilizations flourished when these regions were connected to the Indian subcontinent and connected to the northern Hindu Kush (Central Asia). If we move away from the political map of the region and look at its natural map, Kabul is the edge of India; Its clouds come from the Indian subcontinent and its waters flow to the fringes of this land, its mountains curve, and its valleys join this broad range.
The history of our non-ancient and written periods is also the history of the connection and distance between this land and India. The Ghaznavids, Ghuridis, Seljuks, Timurids, and Durranis received their names and fame thanks to the blessing of India. In the history of the formation of modern Afghanistan, India has played a central role and is even more prominent than this land itself. In the early days of the formation of the kingdom of Ahmadshah Abdali, one of the most decisive factors was the flow of taxes from Peshawar and Kabul to Kandahar, and after that, India was the main character of the history of the Ahmadshah period.
History says that at the time of the formation of Ahmadshah's government in Kandahar, Kabul and Peshawar were under the control of one ruler (Nawab Nasirkhan). In Siraj at-Tawarikh, the receipt of twenty-six thousand rupees from the taxes of Peshawar and Kabul in Kandahar in the early days of the formation of the government of Ahmad Shahi is called a good event and "a gift from Hazrat Yazdan (God)". The proximity of Afghanistan to India has often been a valuable gift from God while being away from it has resulted in a painful and ominous situation. When Britain failed to conquer this frontier with India, it cut off everything it could and imprisoned the rest behind its supposed political line. Since then, our country has stopped moving forward and has fallen into decline. The ugly events of this era, from daily and endless royal visits to civil wars, from famine and constant poverty to scientific poverty and political backwardness, are all connected in one way or another with this expulsion from India and geographical isolation.
This story of separation has at least two narrators. One of them is us who consider ourselves co-owners of parts of the sub-continent, some of us are claiming ownership of parts of the land of Pakistan, and we are considering access to the Indian Ocean and the trade route to India, etc. as our natural right. And the other is those who live on the other side of the wall in the subcontinent itself and consider our land as a rebellious and fleeing part of the mother (India and Pakistan). They suffer from this and plot all sorts of plots to get him back. They also see this side of the wall as an obstacle to the growth of the region and believe they have a right to property and neighborhood, road and transit, and this uneven and chaotic land should be "managed" and pacified so that the subcontinent will connect with Central Asia and labor and goods moved between two large regions.
On this side, Pakistan is called a fake country and an obstacle to connecting Afghanistan to warm waters and a blessed sub-continent. On the other hand, Pakistan considers itself the larger, stronger, and more worthy half of this land and common past. He calls his missiles "Guri" and "Ghaznavi" and treats Afghan politicians and political groups as big brothers and supporters. A symbolic situation On August 15, 2021, when a group from Pakistan went to Kabul to capture Arg, a group of government members left it and took refuge in Islamabad. This clearly shows the role of Pakistan and the views of the rulers of this country in relation to our land.
The people of Afghanistan already understand the situation and, mentioning that our country has become the fifth province of Pakistan, expresses their dissatisfaction with his policies. But until now, Pakistan has not officially claimed the territory on this side of the Duran Line and has not said that we are making Afghanistan the fifth province, but has pursued a persistent and mature policy of making this land pleasing to its politics and business.
In an interview with Afghanistan International, Gen. Assad Durrani recently made some short but clear remarks about the Durand Line and Afghanistan-Pakistan relations. He said Pakistan asked Zahir Shah, Karzai, and the Taliban to formalize the Duran border, which he thought was ridiculous. Asad Durrani says the Duran border is a ridiculous thing (meaning it shouldn't exist). He says that "we must not create discord" between the inhabitants of the two sides, and the border of the confederation "belongs to the inhabitants of both sides". Thus, Pakistan will gain access to the Central Asian market and energy resources. He did not say anything about the benefits that Afghanistan would receive from this confederation in that conversation, but if the reporter had asked, he would probably have mentioned the access of residents on the other side of the Duran Line to the Pakistani market.
After hearing the words of Asad Durrani, I looked through the tapes of the confederation debate between Afghanistan and Pakistan and found that in Pakistan, the confederation was a serious and historical dispute between the Pashtuns, who always had power and were loyal to Pakistan. In fact, in Pakistan, there were three approaches to the problem of Duran and Afghanistan. One such approach is that of influential non-Pashtun generals who tried to continue the British policy towards Afghanistan. In this method, weapons and diplomacy are used simultaneously for the purpose of control and suppression until surrender. Where dialogue is ineffective, as in the first and second Afghan and British wars, they whip the lives of the Afghans with weapons and missiles (Jihad and Taliban organizations), and when the whip becomes repetitive or ineffective, they enter the battlefield with Shah Shuja and diplomacy.
The second approach came from Pashtuns seeking independence. They did not cooperate with the government of Pakistan but instead tried to mobilize the Pashtun areas on the other side of the Duran Line by emigrating to Afghanistan, propaganda among the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and tribal areas, and completely separating them from Pakistan or giving them internal autonomy.
The third group is people like Aslam Khatak and Asad Durrani, who were in power in the administrative and military apparatus of Pakistan and were committed to a united Pakistan, but at the same time wanted to improve the political status of the Pashtuns in Pakistan, solve the Duran problem and unify Afghanistan and Pakistan to create a confederation. Here we will briefly look at the efforts of the Pakistanis to create a confederation.
A) The position of Great Britain
In July 1947, as in July 2021, new events in our region were developing very quickly. As in the previous year, the land was handed over to the puppet forces, and the superpower left the region, but, leaving, retained the authority to divide the land and transfer power. In July 2021, Afghanistan became the subject of this policy, and in July 1947, India. According to an article published on the website of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn in 2005, in the month that final preparations were being made for the declaration of an independent state of Pakistan, the Afghan royal government tried to convince the UK to grant independence or autonomy to the Pashtuns of India. Shah Mahmoud Khan, Zahir Shah's uncle, was prime minister and went to London to seek British support. But the British Foreign Secretary said that the North West Frontier Province (now Pakhtunkhwa) is an integral part of India, and this has already been recognized by the Afghan government. Shah Mahmoud Khan leaves disgruntled, and the Afghan government responds by turning to the newly formed United Nations, opposes formal recognition of Pakistan, and supports separatist forces and their leaders in tribal areas. On August 14, 1947, the government of Pakistan officially declared its existence (last year on August 14, the Taliban approached the gates of Kabul), and later in a referendum, which the majority of the population on both sides of the northwest line of Duran still calls a political conspiracy, the border province (Pakhtunkhwa) was officially annexed to Pakistan. But the parties to the conflict did not stop trying.
B) US support
One of the designers and followers of the confederation in those years was Aslam Khatak. Khatak, born in 1908 in Chitral, Pakhtunkhwa Province, was one of the prominent members of the British Indian Administration during the establishment of Pakistan. He studied at Oxford University and went on various missions with the bureaucracy of British India. He was Pakistan's ambassador to Kabul from 1956-1957 and worked hard to resolve the Duran problem between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The biography of Aslam Khatak, in his own words, tells that the confederation plan was not taken seriously by the Pakistani leadership at first. And that part of the Pakistani army and politics, which wanted to solve the Afghan issue in the English way, responded to the request to support negotiations between Pakistan and Afghanistan with the following words:
“We will solve the problem of Afghanistan with a few strategic bombs!”
But the influential Pashtuns in the military and administrative apparatus of Pakistan did not stop their efforts and at the same time lobbying in Kabul and Islamabad for a rapprochement between the two countries. In Kabul at that time, Davudkhan was the prime minister and a competent person. Aslam Khatak said that in order to get closer to Davudkhan, he tried to talk to his relatives first. So he first gained the trust of Shahvalikhan and Shahmahmudkhan, Daoud's uncle, and told them that if Pakistan and Afghanistan were to survive between the two powerful countries of India and the Soviet Union, they must be together. After that, with the support of these two, he tried to enlist the support of Davudkhan. According to Aslam Khan, Davud had some considerations. First of all, he believed that Pakistan was trying to take over and annex Afghanistan, and that is why the letter "A" was added to the name of Pakistan, which is the beginning of the word "Afghan". It is by no means possible to create a confederation in which two countries would have independence in internal affairs without the support of a superpower. After much negotiation, Davudkhan agreed that if the United States supported the plan, he would also be willing to cooperate.
The United States also supported the Confederacy and promised significant development assistance. America's main commitments were:
1) development of the port of Karachi;
2) development of the port of Gwadar;
3) extension of the railway line from Landikutal to Jalalabad;
4) extension of the railway from Chaman to Kandahar;
5) provision of 5,000 locomotives and 500 wagons for the Afghanistan-Pakistan railway.
Zahirshah and Davudkhan traveled to Pakistan to discuss the details of the plan, while President Sikandar Mirza and Pakistani Prime Minister Hussain Shahid Suhrawardi visited Kabul.
This process soon stopped. During Davudkhan's trip to Karachi, a bullet was fired from a boat toward the delegation, and Aslam Khatak was wounded. This plan has many internal and external enemies. India, the Soviet Union, those Pakistani generals who thought taking over Afghanistan and ruling it with "strategic bombs" were more cost-effective than the Confederacy, and the Pashtuns who wanted Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and its tribal territories independent or annexed to Afghanistan, everyone could be blamed for foiling this plan.
С) Use of strategic bombs
In October 1958, after several months of the political crisis in Pakistan, the famous Pakistani general Ayubhan came to power, who in 1951 became the first head of the native army and became the first military head of the government of Pakistan to come to power through a coup d'état. He was one of the supporters of "strategic bombs" against Afghanistan. Aslam Khatak said that in 1956 Pakistani Prime Minister Suhrawardi invited high-ranking officials of his country to a meeting to discuss the problem of Afghanistan. General Ayub Khan, who led the army, said in a British tone, “Afghan question? What is the Afghan problem? A few strategic bombings and armored vehicles will settle this once and for all!” His rise to power may have been the main reason for the cessation of political efforts to create a confederation. Since then, Pakistan has been trying to rule Afghanistan through strategic bombing for more than half a century. They trained several generations of Afghan fighters and financed and supported at least three periods of devastating wars in this land. Religious conservative schools and forces have been the main source of strategic bombs in Pakistan's possession. The Taliban, with their army of Takfirists and Jihadists, have shown a terrible picture of this country's strategic bombs over these three decades. But on the sidelines of this trend, voices have always been heard from some circles in Pakistan about the formation of a confederation. On the eve of the fall of the Najib government, when the Mujahideen created an interim government in Peshawar, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's statement about this was also broadcast to the media, and given the position of Hekmatyar, his words were interpreted as echoes of army circles and Pakistani intelligence. In those years, General Asad Durrani led the ISI for some time (1988-1989).
Even now, Assad Durrani (in the photo) comes from a position different from that of the ruling elite in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, and in fact, he represents a group that, although committed to Pakistan, wants to remove or soften the Durand Line issue. In his latest interview, he called the border wire work that Pakistan has done over the past decade a mistake and a detriment to the region. Durrani, who after graduating from high school before retiring, worked in the army and intelligence services of Pakistan, fought in both the important Indo-Pakistani wars of 1965 and 1971 and spent his retirement in important positions such as the embassy. He certainly has extensive military and intelligence connections and his words can be the voice of a number of generals and politicians in this country, especially as Pakistan's army and intelligence are run in a mafia and godfather style and the role of the convinced is very prominent in them.
D) Special features of the confederation
What are the characteristics of a confederation that people like Assad Durrani want? Unfortunately, the Afghanistan International reporter did not take Durrani's words about confederation seriously in that interview and did not ask him to explain if the Taliban have such a mission or if are they paving the way for a confederation and what is the confederation that the Pakistanis want? To understand his position here, I rely on other parts of this interview, as well as an article by Durrani written for the Institute for Strategic Studies in Islamabad entitled "Strategic Decision Making in Pakistan".
In his article, Durrani formulated three main characteristics of strategic decisions: first, the main and decisive decisions are made in response to developments, which in most cases turn out to be unexpected. Secondly, these decisions are made in a narrow circle of the decision-making center. Thirdly, these decisions are not final and immutable, but as the situation develops, the necessary adjustments and reforms are made. He cites Zia-ul-Haq's decision to support the Mujahideen as an example and says that with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan was faced with a situation that required a critical decision. This fateful decision was made by General Zia in his narrow circle of advisers, and it was decided that the "resistance" of the Afghan people to the Soviet Union would be supported by Pakistani intelligence. As the situation developed, the United States and its Western allies arrived, then thousands of jihadists poured in from Islamic countries. At the same time, foreign fighters were happy to have a training ground where they could prepare for the next wars in their own country. These aliens have made adjustments to the basic decisions of Pakistan. Various political and military forces have come and gone, and alliances have been formed and broken, but the main goals have not changed, including:
1 - The withdrawal of foreign troops (during the jihad, Soviet soldiers, and Western forces in the last twenty years) from Afghanistan has been one of the main goals of Pakistan in the last half-century. Durrani mentioned this goal in his article and said in his recent interview that "if there are foreign forces from any country in Afghanistan, we will run into problems." Pakistan not only considers the presence of non-Pakistani foreign forces in Afghanistan a problem but also considers any foreign influence in Afghanistan and Afghans' special relations with other countries problematic. Therefore, control over the foreign policy of Afghanistan is one of its strategic goals of Pakistan, and building a confederation is also aimed at achieving this goal.
2 - The government based in Kabul should manage this land and establish order and security throughout the country so that Pakistan can freely supply goods to the market of Afghanistan and Central Asia, as well as oil and gas pipelines from north to south, produce goods and services supply, energy and capital transfer.
3 - Nationalism and nationalists must be suppressed in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, where national identity is important, will run counter to Pakistani policy, and the confederation program that Islamabad wants will be canceled. Nationalism seeks independence, while Pakistan has problems with the independence of Afghanistan. Therefore, the Taliban, who, according to Assad Durrani, are hundreds of times better than the rulers of the republican period, destroy the flag, the national anthem, the constitution, the Persian language, the Nowruz celebration, and other national symbols and the independence of Afghanistan, and instead create an identity for the country on which The country of Pakistan was founded: Islam. Pakistan, founded under the slogan of defending the rights of the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent, tried to build its national identity on this slogan. It has named its capital Islamabad, named its government the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, opened thousands of schools, and plans and implements jihadist projects. The planners of the confederation strategy and the strategic bomb in Pakistan imagine that the Afghan people who hold traditional views and believe in Islamic values can be stripped of their national identity through this plan and create a new identity on the axis of Islamabad where the Duran Line is losing its color. Goods and people from all over the Indian Ocean should not encounter any obstacles to moving to the other side of the Amu Darya.
Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan and differences over the causes of these tensions are serious obstacles to the development of both countries. Afghanistan cannot achieve stability without being connected to the great market of the Indian subcontinent and through it to water and peace. Pakistan, which has hostile relations with its large neighbor India, will not achieve stability and development until Afghanistan is developed, engaged in war, and has no outlet to the northwest. But will it be possible to build a confederation by imposing and promoting the medieval Taliban to erase Afghanistan's identity?
