As Taliban threaten to kill Americans, Pakistan’s Establishment’s woes increase

Syed Talat Hussain

A Voice of America report out of Islamabad quotes the Taliban representative sounding a dire warning to the newly-arrived Biden Administration. “If they remain in Afghanistan after this [the agreed deadline] we will also kill them even if somebody rewards us or does not reward us. We take our reward from God. We fight the invaders without a reward, without any bounty,” the report cites Sher Mohammad Stanikzai, a senior Taliban leader. 

The context of the warning is a review of the Doha Agreement that is underway in Washington from where the signals are that the Joe Biden team may revisit the whole deal signed with much hope and hype last year by the Trump Administration. 

The Talibaan anticipating a negative review may be attempting to forewarn the US of the consequences of reopening the Agreement. Hence the death threat. The Biden Administration’s review is pegged onto the assessment that the Taliban has used the Agreement to expand their influence in Afghanistan without heeding to the condition of bringing down violence and the killings. 

If the Taliban wants to influence the Biden Administration, threatening to kill more Americans isn’t really a smart message to send. If anything, such sword-waving may strength the voices in Washington insisting that the deal with the Talibaan was meant to only to give a cover of a negotiated diplomatic settlement to what was actually a bad pull out plan designed to provide a besieged Donald Trump some good news on the foreign policy front. 

The Biden Administration would want the Talibaan to do much more than what they have done so far for the last year’s deal to stick. The Taliban would want to deliver on their threat of more violence if the agreed deadline is not adhered to. There is a lot of trouble ahead.

This see-saw is bad news for Pakistan. General Qama Bajwa-led GHQ  had put all its Afghanistan eggs in the basket of the hope that the US will stick to the Doha Agreement in all circumstances. In fact, there were silent prayers for Donald Trump to win the elections to avoid exactly the kind of uncertain situation that prevails now in Afghanistan. This means that there was never really a plan B in case the Doha Agreement ran into trouble, precisely what has happened now. 

Moreover, more pressure on the Taliban has historically meant more pressure on Pakistan. There is a bipartisan consensus in Washington that the Pakistan military calls the shots for the Talibaan, and if there is a way to make the Talibaan change their behavior, it can be found by dialing up Pindi. 

How much influence does the Pakistani Establishment has with the Talibaan is a matter of debate but there are no takers in the US for the argument that Pakistan’s generals can’t tell the Talibaan what to do. 

Rupture of understanding on how the Doha Agreement is to be implemented can mean a renewal of demand on Pakistan’s military to do more. But why not talk to the Imran government? Well, it is bleeding obvious. You only have to see how clueless and purposeless the present government is and how desperately it depends on the generals’ support to get through its days in power to know who to talk to on more substantive issues. 

But the problem is that the duo of General Qamar and DG ISI General Faiz itself is over-stretched and is seen in a partisan light. They are associated tightly with Imran Khan whose government is constitutionally questioned, legally challenged, and publicly losing support as the economy nosedives and the cost of living devastates millions of households every day. 

They have too much on their plate and are deeply stuck in the domestic political quagmire (some say of their own making) as the defense and foreign policy challenges of the country become grimmer by the day. Internally there is no room for a national-level discourse on how to manage these challenges. Washington’s Afghanistan review and the Talibaan threats could not have come at a worse time for Pakistan’s real rulers.