Pakistan's Pyrrhic Victory in Afghanistan Islamabad Will Come to Regret Aiding the Taliban's Resur
Pakistan’s security establishment is cheering the Taliban’s recent military gains in Afghanistan. The country’s hard-liners have funneled support to the Taliban for decades, and they can now envision their allies firmly ensconced in Kabul. Pakistan got what it wished for—but will come to regret it. A Taliban takeover will leave Pakistan more vulnerable to extremism at home and potentially more isolated on the world stage.
The end of the United States’ 20-year war in Afghanistan also promises to mark a turning point in its relationship with Islamabad. Pakistan has long veiled its ambitions in Afghanistan to maintain relations with Washington, but that balancing act—seen in Washington as a double game—will prove impossible in the event that a reconstituted Islamic emirate is established in Kabul. This would not be the vindication that Pakistan’s military is expecting: the Taliban are less likely to defer to Pakistan in their moment of triumph, and the Americans are not likely to reconcile with the group over the long term. Pakistan’s nightmare scenario would be to find itself caught between an uncontrollable Taliban and international demands to rein them in.
The Taliban’s victory will have an equally disastrous effect on Pakistan’s domestic peace and security. Islamist extremism has already divided Pakistani society along sectarian lines, and the ascendance of Afghan Islamists next door will only embolden radicals at home. Efforts to force the Taliban’s hand might result in violent blowback, with Pakistani Taliban attacking targets inside Pakistan. And if fighting between the Taliban and their opponents worsens, Pakistan will have to deal with a new flow of refugees. A civil war next door would further damage the country’s struggling economy. Pakistani critics of their country’s involvement with the Taliban have long feared and predicted this scenario. But Pakistan’s generals see the Taliban as an important partner in their competition with India. Weak civilian leaders in Islamabad, meanwhile, have acquiesced to a policy that prioritizes the elimination of real or perceived Indian influence in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s security establishment has long obsessed about imposing a friendly government in Kabul. That fixation is rooted in the belief that India is plotting to break up Pakistan along ethnic lines and that Afghanistan will be the launching pad for antigovernment insurgencies in Pakistan’s Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regions. These fears have their roots in the fact that Afghanistan claimed parts of Balochistan and Pakistan’s Pashtun regions at the time of Pakistan’s creation in August 1947. Afghanistan recognized Pakistan and established diplomatic relations a few days later but did not acknowledge the British-drawn Durand Line as an international border until 1976. Afghanistan also remained friendly with India, leading Pakistan to allow Afghan Islamists to organize on its territory even before the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979.
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The name derives from "Punjab, Afghan, Kashmir - istan".
, and referring to the names of the five northern regions of the British Raj: Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, and Baluchistan.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan
The addition of small minorities of Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmen and Hazara won't add much to Pakistan's difficulties in managing ethnic competition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Pakistan
