India loses way in Afghan great game

[unhappycamper]

http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2014/10/19/india-loses-way-in-afghan-great-game/

India loses way in Afghan great game
M K Bhadrakumar

The Pakistan prime minister, Nawaz Sharif has taken a major initiative to engage the new leadership in Afghanistan by deputing the foreign and security advisor Sartaj Aziz to visit Kabul. Sharif would be keen on an early visit by President Ashraf Ghani to Islamabad. One main objective of Aziz’s mission would be to get an early idea of Ghani’s thinking on reconciliation with the Taliban. Equally, Pakistan would drive home the advantage of its burnished image regionally and internationally following its military crackdown on the militant groups ensconced in Waziristan. Washington is pretty much pleased with the Pakistani leadership’s resolve to go after the Haqqani network.

Indeed, the dramatic capture of Anas Haqqani by the Afghan intelligence might even have been the outcome of some degree of back-to-back coordination involving the Pakistani, US and Afghan sides. We may never get to know. At any rate, Anas’s capture raises the comfort level in Kabul and provides an intriguing setting for Aziz’s talks with the new Afghan national security advisor Mohammad Hanif Atmar in Kabul today.

A third factor on Aziz’s mind would be the ‘realignment of militants’ based on the Afghan-Pakistani border and the spectre of the invidious charm of the Islamic State captivating the Afghans, which at once enhances Pakistan’s status as a frontline state in the US’ regional calculus. To be sure, Washington has every reason to be happy about Aziz’s Kabul visit.

But Aziz’s mission will be primarily judged in Washington on the gravitas it brings to the reconciliation talks, which now the Obama administration’s top priority. A stable Afghanistan following the US troop withdrawal is a legacy that President Obama would like to claim as his presidency winds up in a little over 25 months from now.