The real pause
Published July 16, 2025
DAWN
LET us begin with some clichés: Afghanistan has always been the playground of global power rivalries. It will remain so. Pakistan and Afghanistan, at the intersection of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East, in China’s neighbourhood, are of great strategic importance in an increasingly multipolar world. Power is returning from the West to the East. And since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, there is a resurgence of extremist groups and increased instability in our region.
The recent terrorist incident in Pahalgam, followed by a four-day skirmish between India and Pakistan and a subsequent ceasefire — or what many call a ‘pause’ — has left the region on edge.
India’s unsubstantiated allegations against Pakistan for the Pahalgam attack seem at odds with the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2025, published by the Institute of Economics and Peace, which ranks Pakistan second, India fourteenth, and Afghanistan ninth among the countries most affected by terrorism.
In Pakistan, total deaths from terrorist attacks in 2024 increased by 45 per cent over 2023. Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attacks escalated significantly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, accounting for 558 deaths in 482 attacks — the second-highest number of attacks by any single group last year. Baloch insurgent groups, including the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), also continued attacks on our security forces, law enforcement agencies and civilians.
Should world powers seek alternative models of engagement rather than reigniting their Great Game in Afghanistan and the region before it is too late?
According to the GTI, Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-K) has expanded into one of the most active jihadist groups worldwide. Their digital propaganda now spans multiple languages — Pashto, Dari, Urdu, Arabic, Farsi, Uzbek, Tajik, Turkish, English, and recently, Russian — mainly targeting youth across the region, posing threats to Iran, Turkiye, Russia, and the broader international community.
To secure their own strategic and economic interests, some countries of the region had adopted the pragmatic approach of limited engagement with the Taliban regime despite the Afghan policy of deliberate disempowerment of women and girls. Since January 2025, however, there has been some discrete and some overt warming up to the Kabul regime by its neighbours and by the great powers. On January 26, Iran’s Foreign Minister visited Kabul, the first such visit since the Taliban takeover. On March 30, Zalmay Khalilzad led the first high-powered American delegation to Kabul since 2021 — officially, to secure a prisoner’s release, but speculations also point to Washington seeking a return to the Bagram air base. Turkiye recently terminated the mission of diplomats appointed by Afghanistan’s former government, potentially paving the way for the Taliban to appoint its own envoys. The UAE has been quietly increasing its presence in Afghanistan, while Qatar reportedly facilitated Khalilzad’s visit.
Pakistan, too, has escalated its diplomatic engagement with Afghanistan. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar’s visit to Kabul on April 19, thefirst since February 2023, was preceded by the visit of Pakistan’s special envoy for Afghanistan. Pakistan appointed its ambassador to Kabul on May 30; Kabul reciprocated. Notably, this uptick in diplomacy occurred after the Pakistan-India conflict and as a result of an informal China-Pakistan-Afghanistan trilateral meeting in Beijing, with China playing mediator.
The Taliban regime, however, still largely remains unrecognised, even though China, Uzbekistan, and the UAE already host Taliban ambassadors, and Russia has formally accepted a Taliban ambassador.
China’s role in the region also needs to be viewed within the context of the US strategic posturing at the recent Shangri-La Dialogue. The US defence secretary warned that “the threat China poses is real, and it could be imminent.” Underscoring the importance of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region for the Trump administration, he added that any attempt by China to reunify Taiwan with the mainland would result in “devastating consequences for the Indo-Pacific and the world”.
On May 31, at the Eurasian Forum near Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Nato of coining the term “Indo-Pacific” to drag India into their anti-China scheme. Most importantly, he said: “Four years after their ignominious retreat, Nato is once again seeking new points of entry into Afghanistan”.
More recently, on June 12, Centcom Commander Gen Michael Kurilla, in a US Congressional hearing, called Pakistan a “phenomenal partner” in counterterrorism and highlighted IS-K’s growing footprint in Pakistan. The TTP and the BLA found no mention in his statement.
We could perhaps attribute his remarks to a 2023 United Nations International Crime and Research Institute (UNICRI) report that urged the global community and the UN to proactively address evolving threats in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
Let us end by connecting the regional dots to the global ones. The broader geopolitical calculus is unmistakable:
The US maintains influence in Eastern Europe via Ukraine to counter Russia, and in the Middle East through its soulmate, Israel. Israel is devouring Gaza and has now attacked Iran with impunity amid the deafening silence of its Muslim neighbours.
Now, it appears poised to regain a strategic foothold in Afghanistan to counter China. Alliances are solidifying, with the US leading one bloc and China with Russia leading the other, mainly comprising the Global South. Weapons are being tested in South Asia and Europe.
So, does this mark the end of “the real pause” in the Great Game? Should world powers seek alternative models of engagement rather than reigniting their Great Game in Afghanistan and the region before it is too late — for the sake of humanity, perhaps?
For the US and Europe, geographically removed from the Middle East and South Asia, even from Ukraine, the wars play out like serialised tragedies on TV screens. Why should they be pushed to rethink? During the World Wars, it was our people who were used as fodder. Now, again, it is us on the frontlines. It is for us as a region to pause and rethink.
PS: The British Indian Army formed 80 per cent of its forces in World War II. Some 24,338 Indians were killed, 64,354 were wounded, 11,754 went missing, and 79,489 were taken prisoner, according to Crossed Swords by Shuja Nawaz.
The writer is a former ambassador.
Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2025
Perils of irrationality
Published July 16, 2025
DAWN
AFTER a brief hiatus in the wake of the four-day conflict with India, the government and the opposition are back to a confrontationist path. Pushed to the wall, the PTI now threatens to take to the street once again. Meanwhile, the party’s overseas supporters are approaching international forums to raise a voice against “political repression” in Pakistan.
A US bipartisan congressional committee was due to meet early on Wednesday Pakistan time reportedly to examine “the government of Pakistan’s persecution of opposition political figures and journalists”. Nothing may come out of this hearing that could trouble the present dispensation, but it’s not all well for the hybrid power structure. It’s not that a fractured PTI can bring down the system through street power, yet the heightened political confrontation has once again highlighted the question of legitimacy of the current political setup.
While the recent controversial judgment by the Supreme Court on the reserved seats for women and minorities may have given the ruling coalition a comfortable two-thirds majority in parliament, it has further exposed the dubiousness of the entire power structure. Not only has the control of the security establishment strengthened, but democratic space has also shrunk.
The perception of a compliant judiciary and a tamed press may have provided a semblance of stability, but the falseness of the existing power structure is evident. The latest crackdown on social media platforms is part of the move to stifle freedom of expression. It’s also a sign of weakness of a dispensation that cannot tolerate any kind of dissent. One can understand the desperation of the PTI to take its case to international forums with no judicial and political recourse available at home.
It may not be justifiable to take the domestic political battle outside and seek support from any other country but unfortunately, this happens when all democratic avenues are closed. Scores of PTI leaders and activists, including former prime minister Imran Khan, are incarcerated allegedly on concocted charges and human rights violations have become the norm. Speculation is rampant that the ruling alliance, with its newfound absolute majority, is planning to bring more changes to the Constitution to establish authoritarian rule. It should be a cause of serious concern for all democratic forces.
Any move to unseat the KP government through engineering would turn the situation extremely volatile.
A government installed in power allegedly through stolen elections doesn’t have any legitimacy. The ruthless use of force by the state to break up even peaceful protests, as witnessed last November in Islamabad, leaves no room for rationality on part of the opposition. The PTI’s call for countrywide protests and the government’s threat to use force to stop it have increased political uncertainty.
This politics of confrontation is extremely perilous for the country facing multiple external and internal security challenges and with its economy still not out of danger. According to some media reports there is now a move to dislodge the PTI’s government in KP following questionable allocation of reserved seats that has drastically altered the numbers game in the provincial assembly.
Although the PTI’s majority in the house remains unassailable despite the party having been deprived of reserved seats, there is some talk about horse trading to buy the support of some provincial ruling party members. Any such move to unseat the PTI government through political engineering would turn the situation in the troubled province extremely volatile. Any undemocratic political change could exacerbate matters in a province already facing resurgence of violent militancy that has already claimed hundreds of lives, most of them soldiers.
Worsening political instability could provide more space to terrorist groups operating from inside the province and across the border. It is a dangerous power game that presents a serious threat to national security. Instead of understanding the gravity of the situation and ending confrontationist politics, the federal government is now reportedly considering restoring the jirga system in the merged tribal districts against the wishes of the provincial government. Any such unconstitutional move would push the province into complete lawlessness.
It’s not just about KP; there is also a move to unseat some two dozen PTI legislators in the Punjab Assembly on the charge of disrupting the assembly proceedings. One cannot condone any kind of hooliganism by members violating the sanctity of the house. But unfortunately, such scenes of rowdyism have become a norm in our assemblies for long involving every political party while in opposition. Surely it’s important to maintain the sanctity of the house, yet there is no precedent of any member being unseated for disrupting the proceedings of the house. It is hoped sanity would prevail.
While the main responsibility for ending political tension and restoring the democratic process mainly lies with the government, the PTI should also lower the political temperature. There is certainly lack of a coherent leadership that could guide the party to a rational path. It may be true that despite adversity the PTI has remained the most popular mass party, but it remains completely rudderless with so many leaders trying to pull the party in different directions.
It may also be the reason for the party’s failure to effectively mobilise its mass following. The biggest harm to the party has been done by the self-appointed party spokespersons operating from overseas who, through their reckless social media campaign, have also fueled confrontationist politics. Their irresponsible rhetoric has given ammunition to the hybrid rulers to suppress all kinds of dissent.
Their attacks are not only confined to the ruling alliance but they have also been targeting their own party leaders and lawmakers. Their hope to get American backing has massively damaged the party’s politics. Many of them even campaigned for Donald Trump hoping that he would get Imran Khan released. That did not happen.
The politics of confrontation and derailing of the democratic process has pushed the country to a serious crisis threatening its unity. The country can only safeguard its sovereignty when its people are free to exercise their democratic rights. Authoritarian rule and unelected forces cannot effectively deal with the serious challenges the country is facing.
The writer is an author and journalist.
zhussain100@yahoo.com
X: @hidhussain
Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2025
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