Jameel-ur-Rehman Zaib
US, until recently, was bent upon crushing the all hideouts of the terrorist outfits operating in unbridled manners in the war-torn Afghanistan and she seemed unmoved to invite Taliban for table talk, but a sudden mind-changer made her realize that the stakes were no more in her favor and the war was unwinnable. Whatever the reasons behind the mind-changer might be, switching toward peace process is too little and too late to ameliorate the life standard of the victims of militancy, much to the disappointment of the people of this belt, the domain of Taliban and Al-Qaeda is broader than ever it was. Under the stress for withdrawal on time, Obama could so far frame neither proper structure for future governance which may surely be of Taliban taking the country back to the lurches of pre-2001 fundamentalism nor did anything to uplift the appalling condition of the war-hit region. The cliché-ridden campaign by the West that extremism is successfully driven out of Afghanistan before starting of the peace negotiations has changed nothing much to alleviate the apprehensions of the world with respect to their security.
US held two day talks in Doha in late June with Afghan Taliban in order to steer the bilateral dialogues to a fruitful, reconciliatory and peace-making conclusion. Taliban seem to have a better position of gaining favors in the negotiations, not the way US wanted.
Created and patronized under the urgency of strictly containing the ‘Domino Effect’ of the Communist threat, the once US-sponsored Taliban began to gather momentum for an ideological system of their own quickly after the end of the cold war posing a potentially dramatic threat to the ideal Western system.
Despite a decade long US-led international effort to eliminate the persisting threat of global Talibanisation, the Afghan war is nothing more, but a bloody chip of waste investment for US as she has utterly failed to circumscribe the domain of militants. Consequently, the extremist forces have grown stronger than ever.
The ongoing bilateral talks aimed at preparing the ground for the face-saving pullout of the US forces from 12 years long war will unleash the (militants) to wreck unprecedented havoc, militancy will be let loose and the ever strengthening network of extremists will foment more anarchy and sectarian blood bath which they call a part of their ‘Global Jihad Campaign’.
Not judicious enough, the radicalization of Islam was primarily a US design calling it the Grand Alliance of the 1980’s (West-Islam Alliance). Madressahs of new nature were installed in the troubled areas of Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan with intensions to proliferate Jihadists against the Soviet aggression. A mistake the US regrets to this day was the framing of the curricula for the given Madressahs introduced in 1984 continuing till 1994, the program was prepared by NebraskaUniversity’s AfghanistanAffairsStudiesCenter with a total of 51 million USD budget on the project. The curricula containing images of infidels’ barbarities against Muslims, maps, pictures of the weapons and secret sanctuaries taught in the schools of Afghanistan injected an unending abhorrence against every foreigner. The excessive reprinting of the textbooks by the local aid workers circulated such a vastly affecting anti-intruders perception in the youth that the post war era witnessed a resurrection of radicalization in worst forms even after the Cold War was over. That radicalization is the backbone of today’s worldwide terrorism.
Perceptions that the nukes have secured the world will not rehabilitate the aired apprehensions of a new phenomenon, the nuclear terrorism, which is associated with the fear that the militants may in future get access to nuclear weapons. Well, if a long way from the acquisition of nuclear weapons, the extremist elements still remain profoundly perilous to international security.
The more than a decade long war did not change anything, Afghanistan will again usher into pre-2001 era of Taliban rule once US withdraws. US will negotiate will them or perhaps align with them, but regional security more vulnerable to militancy than ever. Peace remains more elusive than ever.
Jameel-ur-Rehman Zaib is a student of MSC-International Relations from NUML, Islamabad, Pakistan. He can be reached at Cell no; 00923122101531 or Email Dostainjameel@gmail.com