World's Blunder? India is likely to be a Victim!
In afghanistan, the ironies are piling up faster than they can be counted. A few days before the 20th anniversary of the twin towers attack, which sparked America's war on the Taliban, the same men are being described as "true partners" in the fight against terrorists. The naiveté of Washington — and, increasingly, the rest of the world — astounds.
Hearing US military commanders speak a language of cooperation with the Taliban, ostensibly to combat the Islamic State (IS), defies common sense and logic. This is especially true when compared to the victory parade video released by the Taliban's propaganda wing.
You'd think the world would take a collective breather and use the last bit of leverage it has — denying the Taliban government recognition — until some basic guarantees could be secured. There's a lot about the attacks that don't add up. Why were the attacks not halted if the intelligence was so precise? The Americans were aware of the impending attacks because the Taliban controlled the airport checkpoints. How did the bombers get past these checkpoints? Who stands to gain from the postmodern narrative of the Taliban as fighters against the more evil IS-Khorasan (IS-K)?
Think again if you thought the American withdrawal from afghanistan would finally cut the umbilical cord between Islamabad and Washington. Any security expert will tell you the inconvenient truth: these terror organizations are a tightly knit network of actors, all as connected as a data-facebook friends list and with less than six degrees of separation. Many of the adversaries we see today can be traced back to the same set of controls.
We are returning to the future as Pakistan's asymmetric war enters a new phase. This could mean another lonely decade for India, which fought terrorism in isolation before the twin towers fell and the world was jolted. Increased militant attacks are likely to return not only to Kashmir, but to other cities, crowded bazaars, and business districts, as they were in the 1990s and early 2000s.
India will be the first to feel the effects. But the rest of the world will not be spared. After all, what happens in afghanistan is never limited to Afghanistan.