PESHAWAR, June 2: Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan since the end of cold war proved a total failure, and the country earned a bad name as the promoter of terrorism instead of gaining a strategic depth, said speakers at a seminar held here on Saturday.
The seminar on ‘Post-Sep 11 Afghanistan: Its Impact on the Middle East, Central and South Asia” was jointly organised by the International Relations Students Association, Department of International Relations, and the History Students Society, Department of History, Peshawar University.
Col Yahya Afandi (R), an specialist on Afghanistan and Central Asian affairs, said on the occasion that the collapse of Taliban regime was a forgone conclusion.
Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan during the period from 1989 to September 2001 was a total failure while Russia strengthened its influence on the Northern Alliance. To destabilize Pakistan’s stance on Afghanistan, India developed close ties with the Tajiks, Mr Afandi maintained.
He suggested that Pakistan’s future Afghan policy, keeping in mind its past follies, should be based on rebuilding and rehabilitating the war-torn country rather than gaining a strategic depth.
“Russia always considered Central Asia as its soft under-belly because Tamerlane of the Central Asia was the only man in the Russian history, who had burnt Moscow while all other conquerors —Charles IV of Sweden, Napoleon and Hitler— met with failure,” Mr Afandi informed the audience.
Speaking at the seminar, Prof Nazir Hussain of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad, said Samuel Huntington in his book ‘The Clash of Civilizations’ depicted the Islam as the enemy of the Western Civilization.
“ The Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians bring into focus the double standards of the US policy makers. The governments of the Muslim world failed to highlight and project these atrocities. Not any two Muslim states share the same views on a single event. Time has come for the Muslim world to either reckon with the cruelties or become a history,” he said.
Zafar Nawaz Jaspal of Islamabad Policy Research Institute told the participants that though India was superior in conventional weapons, they cannot match Pakistan’s missile programme.
“ If a war between the two countries breaks out, both will be losers. Being nuclear powers both have a delivery system, but a nuclear war cannot fulfil the certain political objectives,” said the speaker.
Mohammad Zubair, a lecturer of Islamia College, Peshawar, told the audience that Sep 11 was the beginning of Pakistan’s present day geo-political predicament. A midnight telephone call tore Pakistan’s Afghan policy and its support for the Taliban into pieces. In simple words, Pakistan’s geo-political investment of over 20 years in Afghanistan was rolled back, he added.
“ In a world governed by the tangibles and intangibles of the modernity, having a trans-national; trans-geographic and trans-cultural values, would not only be problematic, but in the ultimate analysis catastrophic for Pakistan,” Mr Zubair remarked.
Student speakers who presented their papers on the subject of seminar included Salahuddin Khan, University of Balochistan, Kashif Saeed, Saima Ghayasuddin and Shahid Naseem.
All the student speakers held that the US was the major beneficiary of the post-September events, as it succeeded in getting access to the resource-rich Central Asia.