Afghan peace process stands stalled after President Baiden has announced to revisit the deal signed between the Afghan Taliban and the US under the Trump administration last year. Doha dialog process began soon after Feb 2020 agreement. Intra Afghan dialog was underway when the administration changed in Washington. Some certain interest groups in America are apprehensive about this Afghan peace process. According to these groups, leaving Afghanistan completely will be a mistake and so will be giving the Taliban a share in the Afghan government. But at the same time, these groups are unable to rationalize the presence of American forces in Afghanistan after a decade of the killing of OBL.

A lot has been written about the Afghan war and now the Afghan peace process. Usually, academic discourse follows a linear analysis of a complex issue without getting into the brass tacks of things. In this linear analysis, the cause of American failure to bring peace and democracy in Afghanistan is Pakistan or at least elements in its intelligence service ISI!

So how did the world reached this conclusion?

Certainly, this conclusion was not driven after some native research or through an on-ground fact-finding exercise. This idea about Pakistan being the source of all the ills in Afghanistan was sold to the global media outlets through a massive media and psyop that ran over 15 years in Europe and America.

It was recently revealed that Indian RAW had created some 150 fake media outlets with single-point agenda of feeding fake news about Pakistan.

BACKGROUND

Background of this war takes us 15 years back around 2005-06 when Taliban in Afghanistan began to regroup after suffering initial shock and awe of American military might in 2001 onwards. Immediately, the US began to complain about Pakistan for being complicit in this resurgence of Taliban resistance. India had been watching this situation closely scrambled to an ambitious and obnoxious foreign policy towards Pakistan with a primary goal to sow discord between Washington and Islamabad. This was not an easy task given the close working relationship between the Pentagon and GHQ in Rawalpindi.

Strong lobbies in Washington were eager to help India to position her on the global geopolitical chessboard against China in the 21^st century. This dynamic gave Delhi new imputes to launch a vicious campaign against Pakistan to paint it as the epicenter of global terrorism and a source of instability in South Asia.

INDIAN MEDIA WAR AGAINST PAKISTAN

India media war and psyop against Pakistan were aimed to yield multiple benefits

• Getting a larger role in the IOR region to meet Delhi’s longstanding aspiration of becoming a regional hegemon.
• Putting pressure on Pakistan so that it can be pushed back from supporting Kashmiris
• Making the world apprehensible about Pakistan’s nuclear ability and its safety.
• To instigate multiple insurgencies in Pakistan to turn it into a failed state.

The power lobbies and interest groups within the US also became on board as there were multiple agenda items where there was complete consensus between Washington and Delhi particularly on making India a Chinese counterweight and curbing Pakistan’s nuclear capability.

It was in 2005 when strategic dialog between India and the US began on a nuclear deal in which India was given a unique waiver to make it part of the Nuclear Supplier Group. Work on long-term strategic partnership agreements began soon after which have concluded in 2020. A sharp hike in hi-tech military hardware supplies to India was witnessed as well.

In 2011, when OBL was found and killed in Abbottabad in a stealth operation by the US SEALs bilateral relations of Islamabad and Washington hit a historic low. Indian media ops took full advantage of this and ensured that Washington will never accept that OBL’s presence was not in knowledge of ISI though President Obama did mention the role of ISI when he broke the news of OBL’s killing in 2011. But after this one-time mention, there was no acknowledgment by Washington about Pakistan’s role in his capture/killing. Indian media war also gave it a spin to make Pakistan looks like a partner of Al-Qaeda instead of Washington.

While all this was happening, India had launched a ruthless terrorism campaign against Pakistan. Lal Masjid Op in 2007 had enraged certain circles in Pakistani society. They were ripe for indoctrination and Delhi came to their solace both emotionally and financially. The result was a dreadful tale of horror which left almost 100,000 Pakistanis either dead or handicapped for life.

Pakistan after 2014’s dreadful APS Peshawar tragedy decided to bring the WoT to a logical end and went after TTP. These operations and years of intelligence development exposed the Indian role behind not only the APS attack but also after the entire war of TTP/BLA. Pakistan has presented the documented proofs of this Indian support to the world.

This was the first serious attempt by Pakistan to regain the lost space. Coincidently, India’s long media war against Pakistan was also exposed at the same time and for the first time, the world began to listen to Pakistan more seriously. In 2019, India committed blunders on LOC and LAC both with Pakistan and China and got militarily humiliated. These developments led to a change in Washington’s approach to the region. For the first time, Washington began to realize that they have bet on the wrong horse as being their strategic partner.

Now, instead of blaming Pakistan or the Taliban, the US must keep an eye on what Indian consulates are doing in Afghanistan in the context of growing violence that is being used as a pretext of collapsing the Feb 2020 peace agreement. There is no military solution to Afghanistan as there is no military problem there, to begin with.

Shahzad Masood Roomi

Shahzad Masood Roomi is founding member and, editor security and geopolitics at GCW. He is IT graduate and has more than 10 years experience of being a  geopolitics and defense affairs analyst. He focuses on IR, geopolitics, strategic studies, maritime security, cybersecurity issues, military aviation, history and geography. His work has published in national and international media outlets.