The winner of America’s ‘forever war’ in Afghanistan – Pakistan

The Taliban is, of course, the hardliners who have formed an interim government of many wanted terrorists. But an even bigger winner may be the Taliban’s primary protector: Pakistan.

Most US allies expressed shock, sadness and anger at the Taliban victory in Kabul last month. But Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, celebrating the fall of Afghanistan’s elected government, said the Taliban had “broken the shackles of slavery.”

For most of the war on terrorism that began after 9/11, Pakistan played a double game. It sometimes helped track and detain al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders. In 2010, Pakistani and US special operations forces arrested Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Karachi. However, at all times, elements of the Pakistani military and intelligence services provided shelter, funding and training for the Taliban and its allies in the deadly terrorist group known as the Haqqani Network.

For the first 10 years of the Afghanistan War, this was an issue that the US and Pakistan preferred to debate privately. After the Haqqani network detonated a truck bomb at a NATO checkpoint near Kabul in September 2011 and the attack on the US embassy, ​​the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, broke his silence. “The Haqqani network acts as a de facto branch of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency,” he said.

No one should have been surprised by Mullen’s allegation. A few months ago, the US killed Osama bin Laden, who was then living comfortably in Abbottabad, the home of West Point’s counterpart to Pakistan. There is a reason why Mullen did not give advance notice of that raid to his Pakistani counterparts.

Between 2001 and 2011, the US provided more than $20 billion in military aid to Pakistan. After 2011, that subsidy started decreasing. In 2018, the US suspended security aid, with a few narrow national-security exceptions.

The sanctions and eventual suspension of military aid was really the only way the US attempted to punish its direct customer. By his second term, President Barack Obama was looking for a way out of Afghanistan. And while President Donald Trump’s first year in office saw a slight increase in forces, his administration negotiated the just completed surrender by President Joe Biden.

It is therefore no wonder that Pakistan is celebrating the victory of the Taliban. A faction in its deep state had been working to bring the Taliban back to power since 2001.

The Biden administration has so far remained silent about the betrayal of Pakistan. Remarkably, there are no remains of Afghan patriots. Protesters in Kabul on Tuesday demanded that Pakistan not interfere in their sovereign affairs.

It would be nice if there was an official show of American support for these courageous protesters. But it is not likely. As Biden has said several times over the past several months, the post-withdrawal plan is for the US to maintain an “above the horizon” capability to target terrorists in Afghanistan. This means that the US would need Pakistan’s approval for flights in its airspace.

America’s “forever war” in Afghanistan may be over. But on the border, in Pakistan, America’s former customers still have an advantage over the superpower it helped defeat.

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed. Only the title has been changed.