US troops stay on, but not to continue war
(Eschmall Sardar, Peshawar)
While the US has extended its
troops stay in Afghanistan, it doesn’t mean that Washington is not convinced
that there is no military solution to the conflict within Afghanistan. Time has
come that all the stakeholders including the allied countries must arrive at
conclusion that the negotiations option has to be applied so as to end miseries
of the Afghan people. If end result is talks, then India must also be advised to
stop going for adventures via Afghanistan. It would be counterproductive for
peace for another decade or so. Also then there is a possibility of fresh wave
of refugees’ exodus. Already, after Kunduz, thousands of people have been
displaced. Many of them wanted to go to Europe and were joining the Syrian
refugees but they were identified as Afghans, therefore arrested and deported.
Iran is also not accepting them. So the pressure will be on Pakistan to accept
them. But this time no one in Pakistan is willing to welcome the Afghans. Ashraf
Ghani, Abdullah and other officials’ statements have been highly discouraging.
Secondly, this time there is a likelihood of Indian agents entering Pakistan in
refugees’ clothing. Nawaz Sharif rightly said there is no military solution to
the conflict and offered to continue efforts to bring the Taliban back to the
table but the US demands confirm that India has deeper influence and the both
have deeper alliance with each other. This would certainly force Pakistan to
continue pursuing maintenance of balance of power in the region. Whereas the US,
according to NYT, had been attempting to secretly convince Pakistan to limit its
nuclear program, Islamabad is likely to accept no pressure of any sort even if
India does so.