Using Pakistan as a scapegoat for their failure in Afghanistan has become a habit for the American administration. Their trillion dollar defeat is a reason for great embarrassment for them and Donald Trump is no different from his predecessors where the blame game is concerned. Trump in his anti-media stance, repeatedly tries to find excuses when faced with questions about his erratic behaviour and the countries repeated failures in their Middle East and Asia policies.
America has lost the war in Afghanistan and it is no secret. The once rag-tag militia, the Taliban which the Americans themselves created with Pakistan, have made the mighty US look weak in Afghanistan in the same way they did to the USSR between 1979 and 1989. The tables have been turned on the Americans.
The Russians are now in negotiations with the Taliban, who were once their sworn enemies, to stabilize the region by accepting their legitimate share in power in Afghanistan. Americans are seemingly not on board, but there is little they can do to avoid the inevitable. The Taliban are there in Afghanistan to stay. And the only way the Taliban will accept peace in Afghanistan is if the US will withdraw from Afghanistan completely and vacate the military bases that they are occupying. US/NATO has no problem with that but want to retain at least a single US/NATO troops base in Afghanistan.
It is a fact that the USA with all its military and financial might is unable to win the war they had started in Afghanistan. For all the financial losses of a trillion dollars, the American casualties of the Afghan war are only casually mentioned.
The American people are rightly fed up. Americans may blame Pakistan for providing logistical support to the Taliban, but the fact remains that, Pakistan acted in her national interest in a world where the USA is no more the sole super-power.
The country is fast loosing clout in the Asia pacific in particular. The oil wars in Iraq on the false narrative of WMD have only benefited the western mega corporations, but they came at the cost of political instability in the Middle East and Asia, creating gaps in the American influence in the region. This scenario has brought forth regional alliances, led by Russia and China to fill the gaps left behind due to the US led failure in the Middle East.
Pakistan's prefererence of their neighborhood alliances of China and Russia over Trumps bullying tactics of subservience. Any intelligent American should be able to realize that up until their country has significant dealings and comradeship with India, a sworn enemy of Pakistan, the Pakistani's would only logically find it in their national interest to side with China and Russia.
Pakistan once helped America and the west to defeat the spread of USSR in Afghanistan. It was jointly in the national interest of Pakistan and combined Western bloc to not allow the USSR to reach the warm waters of the Arabian sea, directly connecting the USSR with the oil rich Middle East. Due to those events andPakistan's participation, Pakistan became the last frontier of the war between Capitalism and Communism also known as the Cold War.
Pakistan fought and won that war for the entire free world as the last line of defense against Communism taking over the world. It was made possible with the American support (which made America the sole super-power of the world) and due to the fighting prowess of the militia they created to fight USSR in Afghanistan, now known as the Taliban. The same Taliban refused to accept the American narrative post 9/11 and choose to fight a prolonged gorilla war with the American led invasion of Afghanistan.
Pakistan sided with the Americans again in this war under pressure from its traditional allies in Washington, however stopped short of targeting those Afghan Taliban who in turn had decided not to attack the state of Pakistan for reasons closer to home, including their own families that were residing in Pakistan.
Pakistan had enough of their own problems without the Pakistani Taliban taking on the country for siding with the Americans in the global war on terror (GWOT) Pakistan lost billions of dollars and thousands of its people including military and civilian citizens in this bloody war within, fought as part of the US led GWOT.
Pakistan only felt it pragmatic not to take upon their enemies like the Afghan Taliban, firstly because they already had their hands full, and secondly because they did not want to lose strategic influence in Afghanistan which now had a hostile government in Kabul, influenced by the US led Western alliance after overthrowing the Taliban government there. Pakistan was again proven right for taking this stance, since the American backed government in Kabul is now visibly more inclined towards New Delhi than Islamabad.
The situation is now playing out in a way that the Taliban are in negotiations with Russia and China, facilitated by Pakistan to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan, which is critical for the regional stability. However, the only pre-condition of such peace to take place is for the US/NATO forces to unilaterally withdraw for Afghanistan.
The USA/EU is obviously not in favour of such a peace accord in which they will have to lose not only face but also influence, to Russia and China. Having said that, what the US/Western camp fails to appreciate is that they are meddling in the very backyard of Russia and China. There is but only a limit to which the US/West can sustain their already dwindling presence and influence in Afghanistan.
Traditionally the geo-strategic position of Pakistan combined with a strong nuclear armed military which has already defeated the insurgency within Pakistan, holds the key to facilitate the end game in Afghanistan.
Once again Afghanistan is at the forefront and is witnessing the fall of another great empire on its tough terrain and again it is up to Pakistan to show a mirror to the USA, like it once did to the USSR.
The world has finally moved from the sole superpower world order to yet again a multi-polar world order.
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