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A senior Obama administration official has conceded that the just-concluded US-Afghanistan strategic partnership agreement could be up against some odds, given Pakistan’s discomfort with an Afghan government that is perceived to be closely aligned with India.
“Pakistan is not going to have completely changed the strategic orientation, which means that they are not going to be comfortable with a Kabul government that is too closely aligned with India, which means that they’re going to be nervous about the Northern Alliance, which means that they’re going to be continuing to seek hedges,” the official said during a background briefing on President Obama’s visit to sign the pact.
Responding to a question on whether the pact was going to work, the official said: “This is hard. And I think whatever we do, Afghanistan is still going to be the third poorest country in the world with a 70 per cent illiteracy rate and some huge sectarian schisms in it, and so they are operating at a great disadvantage.”
He then brought up the Pakistani dimension, adding: “So if you combine all those factors, this is still going to be tough. But having said all that, I am absolutely convinced that we can execute a strategic partnership agreement and a transition, have an Afghan security force that’s effective, that is able to maintain basic stability in Afghanistan.”
Ruling out the possibility of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the official asserted that based on the build-up of Afghan security forces and the capacity they have shown over the last several months, the Taliban can’t return to the kind of wholesale takeover that existed back in the 1990s.
But the Taliban could probably wield influence in villages and remote mountain regions of the country, the official said, remarking: “That would be true, by the way, if we were still there for another 10 years because that’s where they live. But can we have a stable Afghan government that controls the major cities, the major roads, the major thoroughfares, and that the Taliban elements had to accommodate, too? I think that could be accomplished.”
“Pakistan is not going to have completely changed the strategic orientation, which means that they are not going to be comfortable with a Kabul government that is too closely aligned with India, which means that they’re going to be nervous about the Northern Alliance, which means that they’re going to be continuing to seek hedges,” the official said during a background briefing on President Obama’s visit to sign the pact.
Responding to a question on whether the pact was going to work, the official said: “This is hard. And I think whatever we do, Afghanistan is still going to be the third poorest country in the world with a 70 per cent illiteracy rate and some huge sectarian schisms in it, and so they are operating at a great disadvantage.”
He then brought up the Pakistani dimension, adding: “So if you combine all those factors, this is still going to be tough. But having said all that, I am absolutely convinced that we can execute a strategic partnership agreement and a transition, have an Afghan security force that’s effective, that is able to maintain basic stability in Afghanistan.”
Ruling out the possibility of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the official asserted that based on the build-up of Afghan security forces and the capacity they have shown over the last several months, the Taliban can’t return to the kind of wholesale takeover that existed back in the 1990s.
But the Taliban could probably wield influence in villages and remote mountain regions of the country, the official said, remarking: “That would be true, by the way, if we were still there for another 10 years because that’s where they live. But can we have a stable Afghan government that controls the major cities, the major roads, the major thoroughfares, and that the Taliban elements had to accommodate, too? I think that could be accomplished.”
