This time Pakistan is ready to deal with a US withdrawal because it is a simple repetition of history
An Indus Valley state, Pakistan, and a powerful Ganges Valley state, India, both fighting for control of an independent and semi-chaotic Central Asian near abroad — Afghanistan. Kaplan
Pakistan is working with Afghanistan for Talib prisoner release. The ANA (Afghan National Army) is in massive disarray. The ANA has been infiltrated. Another incident has been reported where an ANA soldier fired upon his superiors. It is a revolving door with Talibs working as ANS soldier during the day and Talibs at night.
Flag of Taliban (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The last time around, Islamabad took Washington at its word. During the 80s, the Pakistanis and 52 other countries fought the Soviets. However right after the Soviet withdrawal, during the victory celebrations, President Bush imposed dilapidating sanctions on Pakistan which froze the delivery for the already paid for F-16s. To make matters worse, General Dynamics would send a monthly bill to Islamabad for storage charges. Pakistan never got the planes nor the $450 million it had paid for them.
“disengagement from Pakistan and Afghanistan after the Soviet retreat in 1989 ultimately gave al-Qaeda the space to plan the 9/11 attacks.” Ryan Crocker–former ambassador to Pakistan
In 1992, anti-Soviet mujahedin fighters – some of whom now are members of the Taliban – toppled the puppet Communist government of President Najibullah and took Kabul.
Flag of Afghanistan, used from 1992 to 1996 and in 2001. Español: Bandera de Afganistán, usada de 1992 a 1996 y en 2001. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This time around when Washington loses interest in Afghanistan, the Pakistanis are ready for the consequences. The last time around, Bharat (aka India) was able to forge an alliance with Iran and Russia and attempted to thwart the liberation of Afghanistan. This time around, Pakistan has already taken the Iranians in confidence and have a tactic understanding with Russia. This time around, the Chinese have a huge stake in a stable Afghanistan. Pakistan has been working with China on the future shape of Central Asia and peace in Pakistan.
The current Afghan conflict will not be a repeat of history. There will be some kind of power sharing with at least some segments of the anti-occupation insurgents. That process has already begun with the Karzai government pursuing reconciliation with some Afghan Taliban elements.
A bounty leaflect prepared by the USA for use in Afghanistan (front) -a (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
But the Taliban has already been setting up local administration in areas where the central government has no power and where there is no significant challenge from international forces.
Larry Goodson says today’s Taliban has a more long-term outlook than the first-generation Taliban that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
“Think back to the early Taliban,” he said. “They were the worst governors in the world. They couldn’t do anything. They didn’t want to do anything. They didn’t care. Now all of a sudden you’ve got guys out there trying to actually fill a gap that has been there because of the bad performance of the Karzai government.”VOA
Mr. Kaplan in a recent article published in Foreign Policy magazine says “To the extent that one area was the ganglion of this Muslim civilization, it was today’s Pakistan. Fertile Punjab, which straddles the Pakistan-India frontier, “linked the Mughal empire, through commercial, cultural and ethnic intercourse, with Persia and Central Asia,” writes University of Chicago historian Muzaffar Alam.”
The self-hating Pakistani and vitriolic Islamabadphobe who has sold his soul for a penny, Ahmed Rashid says the following. “Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s misguided handling of Pakistan over the past year has only convinced Pakistani hardliners that they were right. In their eyes, Washington’s provocative cozying up to New Delhi, the peace talks it started with the Taliban without including Pakistan, and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan it planned without adequate consultations with Islamabad have all served notice that America’s hostility toward Pakistan is unrelenting. They believe it’s the Americans who have got it all wrong and now face a military debacle in Afghanistan. The irony is that Pakistan has always wanted a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and a U.S.-Taliban dialogue it could dominate.”
Mr Kaplan puts brings out historical facts to define the reality of Pakistan. “What we know as modern-day Pakistan is far from an artificial entity; it is just the latest of the many spatial arrangements for states on the subcontinent. The map of the Harappan civilization, a complex network of centrally controlled chieftaincies in the late fourth to mid-second millennium B.C., was one of its earliest predecessors. The Harappan world stretched from Baluchistan northeast up to Kashmir and southeast down almost to both Delhi and Mumbai, nearly touching present-day Iran and Afghanistan and extending into both northwestern and western India. It was a complex geography of settlement that adhered to landscapes capable of supporting irrigation, and whose heartland was today’s Pakistan.”
In a telling story in the Times of India, a former US Ambassador is reciting the stories he was told by his masters in Delhi.
NEW DELHI: Should Afghanistan be divided into two? Former US envoy to India, Robert Blackwill, has suggested that the US should effect a de facto partition of Afghanistan.
- The current counter-insurgency is not working, he says, because the Taliban don’t see why they should negotiate peace when they haven’t been defeated on the ground. The US, he suggests, will have to reconcile to the fact that the Taliban will control southern Afghanistan. They should be allowed to do so.
- “After years of faulty US policy toward Afghanistan, there are no quick, easy and cost-free ways to escape the current deadly quagmire. But, with all its problems, de facto partition offers the best available US alternative to strategic defeat,” Blackwill argues in an article in `Politico’.
- Having let the Taliban control southern Afghanistan, the US, he says, should “then focus on defending the north and west regions — roughly 60% of the population. These areas, including Kabul, are not Pashtun-dominated and locals are largely sympathetic to US efforts”.
Islamabad is carefully watching what is happening in Kabul. Pakistanis are also joining the ANA for training, arms and access to technology and information! There is no way to screen them out.
Mr. Kaplan further describes Pakistan’s role in history “Later on, throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern era, Muslim invaders from the west grafted India to the greater Middle East, with the Indus River valley functioning as the core of all these interactions, as close to the Middle East and Central Asia as it is to the Ganges River valley. Under the Delhi-based Mughal dynasty, which ruled from the early 1500s to 1720, central Afghanistan to northern India was all part of one polity, with Pakistan occupying the territorial heartland.
That old reality is also a narration of the current state of affairs. Kaplan says “Rather than a fake modern creation, Pakistan is the very geographical and national embodiment of all the Muslim invasions that have swept down into India throughout its history, even as Pakistan’s southwest is the subcontinental region first occupied by Muslim Arabs invading from the Middle East. The Indus, much more than the Ganges, has always had an organic relationship with the Arab, Persian, and Turkic worlds. It is historically and geographically appropriate that the Indus Valley civilization, long ago a satrapy of Achaemenid Persia and the forward bastion of Alexander the Great’s Near Eastern empire, today is deeply enmeshed with political currents swirling through the Middle East, of which Islamic extremism forms a major element. This is not determinism but merely the recognition of an obvious pattern.”
But it would not mean that the US would completely exit. Instead, “we would then make it clear that we would rely heavily on US air power and special forces to target any al-Qaida base in Afghanistan, as well as Afghan Taliban leaders who aided them. We would also target Afghan Taliban encroachments across the de facto partition lines and terrorist sanctuaries along the Pakistan border.”
- The US would work to secure the north and west and Kabul, which has considerably less Taliban presence or influence. “This might mean a long-time residual US military force in Afghanistan of about 40,000 to 50,000 troops. We would enlist Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and supportive Pashtuns in this endeavour, as well as our NATO allies, Russia, India, Iran, perhaps China, Central Asian nations and, hopefully, the UN Security Council.”
- The US, he says, would retain the freedom to strike at even civilian Taliban leaders in southern Afghanistan.
- The arrangement, he says, would make Pakistan unhappy, but a “Pakistan would likely oppose de facto partition. Managing Islamabad’s reaction would be no easy task — not least because the Pakistan military expects a strategic gain once the US military withdraws from Afghanistan.“
The oldest state in South Asia is not South Asia is Pakistan, called differently under different names. See what Kaplan says.”The more one reads this history, the more it becomes apparent that the Indian subcontinent has two principal geographical regions: the Indus Valley with its tributaries, and the Ganges Valley with its tributaries. Pakistani scholar Aitzaz Ahsan identifies the actual geographical fissure within the subcontinent as the “Gurdaspur-Kathiawar salient,” a line running from eastern Punjab southwest to the Arabian Sea in Gujarat. This is the watershed, and it matches up almost perfectly with the Pakistan-India border. Nearly all the Indus tributaries fall to the west of this line, and all the Ganges tributaries fall to the east.”
The Bharati plan is to start the ethnic civil war in Afghanistan and prevent peace. Delhi wants a “de facto” partition of Afghanistan along ethnic lines. In Bharat’s calculations, the Tajiks and the Uzbeks along with the Hazaras owe their fielty to the Northern Alliance and Delhi is forging ahead with plans to drive a wedge between the Afghans. This time around, the Pakistanis have reached deep into the Amu Darya area and all Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras will not support the Northern Alliance.
We need to integrate back into Central Asia and rebuild historic bonds and call this project – Project Khorasan.
This will resonate with all parties from Iran to deep into Amu Darya to The Pamirs to Punjab.
This will be supported by Saudis and Turkiye and sits well with the Russian and Chinese grand vision.
We need to integrate back into Central Asia and rebuild historic bonds and call this project – Project Khorasan.
This will resonate with all parties from Iran to deep into Amu Darya to The Pamirs to Punjab
This will be supported by Saudis and Turkiye and sits well with the Russian and Chinese grand vision.
We need to integrate back into Central Asia and rebuild historic bonds and call this project – Project Khorasan.
This will resonate with all parties from Iran to deep into Amu Darya to The Pamirs to Punjab
This will be supported by Saudis and Turkiye and sits well with the Russian and Chinese grand vision.
This will give Central Asia the common bond and will integrate the land locked states from Moscow, Beijing to Afghanistan to Karachi, Tehran and to Ankara.
Project Khorasan: Rebuild & Re-Integrate Central Asia.
We live in exponential times, everything as you know is changing, financial institutes, IT (Cloud), services all becoming heterogenous and consolidated, is this globalisation or is it consolidation. Even at a nation level to move forward you can no longer be a lone power but confederates, unions, blocks, trade agreements essentially a consolidation of regional resources, labour, infrastructure and then sharing amongst each other, thus building a more integrated framework. This is nothing new it has happened for years under empires but today we can exist autonomous and independence and enjoy the benefits of empires but as equals, the greatest modern example is Europe. However the rest of the world have lived within an anomaly through the facade of The Cold War, the US capitalised and controlled regions and held a monopoly without even conquering each and every region. Facades are great as long as the culprit remains masked and the wider public remain oblivious and confused, thankfully today people are wiser.
Nations of tomorrow must exist in blocks for prosperity, development and security and Central Asia should be the beginning of where this begins. Central Asian states must first come free from the legacy of european imperialism and the cold war and understand their rich and shared common history. A history that should not worry the Chinese and Russia because a rich and vibrant connected central asia benefits them more so anyone else.
Central Asian states are very similar and need to reclaim their common history and only then can they move forward and appreciate the legacy of that great history. Our common history begins long ago since the dawn of man, when men organised themselves and set forward to trade amongst communities and build civilisations and amny great civilisations were born. I title this project, project Khorasan because this is the story of the greatest era in the history of the vibrant Central Asian era. Through this common knowledge and history of Khorasan central Asia shares avery strong historic, cultural, geographic, linguistic, ethnic, security and commerce bond that needs to once again be re-created.
What is Khorasan.
Khorasan was a great Central Asian empire that began in the the last eastern province of the Persian Empire. In Persian it is defined as “lands of the rising sun” a term we are all very familiar with for a rich, strong, mystical East. The great Khorasani emperor the father of the last Khorasani Empire – The Mughal Empire, Emperor Babur wrote in his memoirs that the people and kingdoms beyond the East of the Indus ( Modern name India ), beyond the Punjab referred to anyone of the Indus and beyond as Khorasanis. The people of the Ganges basin and more central Hind referred to 2 focal points on their travels or engagements with the people of Khorasan. They wrote “On the road between Hind and Khorasan, there are two great aggregate points / cities one being Qabul & the other Qandahar. Even in those ancient times as known by the letters of Alexander to his mother these people were very well known as a civilised people but also extremely fierce.
This is the focal point of Khorasan, the heart of Khorasan what is known as Afghanistan today but the borders are vast going deep into the Oxus and touching the Caspian Basin to the heights of the Everest and down to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea. Here lived a plethora of people, skilled merchants, warriors, horse riders, nation builders with a vast rich history and often in conflict linked to trade. When the Persian Empire fell to The Muslims and these lands adopted the faith of Islam, they spiritually became one, linked by a common bond and it is here that we saw rise of great cities and great strength of this region. The modern heartlands of this region are as follows;
1. Iran
2. Afghanistan
3. Pakistan
4. Tajikistan
5. Turkmenistan
6. Uzbekistan
7. Kazakhstan
During various periods in history these borders encroached deep across the Caspian basin. The Seljuk Turks too were from this region and when they conquered Byzantine they encroached deep into the Baltic States and into Eastern Europe known formerly as the Ottoman Empire. On the Eastern front of Khorasan the Mughals crossed deep east across The Indus and had influence right across the Asia Pacific and to the north on the borders of Russia and to the greater East into China. Part of the Islamic civilisation commonly known as the northern crescent of the Islamic civilisation, it was a great, rich and vibrant region. The largest part of the ancient Khorasan was what is known today as Afghanistan. The present day cities of these modern countries would give a better idea of the geographical spread of ancient Khorasan, these wre great rich and powerful cities. The cities of Nishapur and Tus in Iran.
Herat, Balkh, Ghazni, Qabul, Khujandh, Panjakandh, Merv, Sanjan, Samarqandh, Bukhara, Pekhawar, Balochistan, Zabulistan and many more.
This was not only a myriad of people but great civilisations that had a common history and geography. I am not calling for a confederation and a dilution of power to once central region. I propose that these cities rise again as being very rich and vibrant linked through road and rails to the wider region to Moscow, to Ankara, to Beijing, to Islamabad.
This will become a great interlocutor of commerce, trade and the great trade routes of the past can once more emerge and help build a prosperoud, strong region. Even in a Brookings report it was discussing the potential of Central Asia as becoming the hub of trade, industry and opportunity.
“Central Asia has assumed a new role in the era of globalization: During the 19th Century the imperial powers Great Britain and Russia saw the region as the prize of their “Great Game”; during the 20th Century it was the backyard of the Soviet Union, neglected by the rest of the world; today it is the hub of economic integration of the super-continent of Eurasia, home to the most rapidly growing economies of the globe”. Johannes Linn, Brookings Scholar and Special Adviser to the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program (CAREC), .
Central Asia has always been a prize for outsiders in modern terms America, previously the Soviets and The Europeans very keen to always keep a foot hold in this historic region. Surely it makes sense for the nations of this region to then come together and integrate for a common good rather be exploited by outsiders.
“For example, intense attention is now focused on developing and creating access to the energy resources of the region, especially the oil and gas reserves of the Caspian Basin. Russia is interested in maintaining its transport monopoly and preferential access to Central Asia’s oil and gas. Europe and the US want to see more diversified energy transport routes towards the west through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. China is looking to develop the pipeline infrastructure towards the east, and India and Pakistan are eager to tap Central Asia’s energy resources towards the south. Central Asian countries compete for limited water resources as upstream countries (Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan) want to develop their headwaters for hydro power, while downstream countries (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) want to ensure maximum use of water for their vast irrigation schemes”.
Article | November 29, 2007 – Brookings
With the end of the Afghanistan war the region needs to look at how to create an opportunity one that is inclusive for all nations, faiths and ethnicities that exist acros this region. Engage China and Russia but a common consensus must be agreed on how to build this region, I call it Project Khorasan.
Kaplan lacks understanig of WHITE INDIA aka Pakistan.
HIs views based on ‘muslim invasion’ is just 10th grade hsitory based perhaps on biblical nations–the famous mythical delusion.
He ignores the ancient migrations of pple and culture from Africa/mideast cradle; in this scheme off course there is no ” jewish biblical history”. Thus so called ‘ hindu civilization’ is a regionlized version of ancient mideast. India like egypt as ‘ rich farming’land always had accepted ‘ migratnts/invaders’ from improvished lands, caucasus, iraq/syria,greec, turkey etc. Thus so called ‘ muslim invasion’from 8th cent onwards was just history repeating.
We see even muslim invaders invading muslim india several times–a repeat of history-ongoing process; Interestingly now nobody will invade India which is no more ‘rich/surplus state’; Farming now has ceased to measure the ‘wealth/status’; Powers like USA/China will love to maitain influence–for market mainely.
You have very correctly portrayed 2 indias, western part under a new name ‘pakistan’; Nehru in his discovery has called it “WHITE INDIA” defining the rest as “NON white”. Gangetic plain and south which were populated by ” rice farmers” from east( burma, thailand, south china) around 2000 BC while Indus valley-pakistan aka WHITE INDIA by Wheat/barley farmers of Mideast ( 7000 BC) as detailed in ” urdu/hindi an artificial divide”; This work focussed of linguistic isfurther complemented by a detailed book by DR SHIDGE revealing that India’s SKT language is fouded on miseatern AKKADIAN ( 3000BC), the oldest version of modern arabic.
So your White india that controlls all the trade routes to west from south asia is ‘ priceless real state’ called indus valley. Pakistan has ‘ physcial and economic controll” of both afghanistan and India; Even if afghanistan is divided in 4 pieces, those entities will be dependent on WHITE INDIA; Same is true for India or several indias of past or future.
MR kaplan is so naive that he ignorss that Ghaznavid empire of 200 yrs ( 10th -12 th cent) or EX WHITE india was pushed by a new Turkish invader ” GHOURI” to be followed by others; THEy succeeded by ” controll” of trade ways.Prior to islam, these turkish/arab invaders are well defined too ie Shakas, huns etc.
USA and India have no choice but to accept the geo-political reallity– strategic importence of Pakistan. I see signs of USA’a acceptance and even by India. It is clear that divding Afghanistan is not in India’s interest–and india is NOT that stupid. They know by dividing afghanistan will ” destablize” the subcontinent and will lead to a repeat history”” muslim domination” as is anticipated in Malhotra’s book ” Breaking India”.AND Muslim’s domination is the most dreadfull for any hindu indian.