Karzai may have it right, but it will cost him

It isn’t common or popular in Washington to say nice things about Hamid Karzai, but I confess I find his statement yesterday that he intends to refocus peace talks on Pakistan rather than trying to negotiate with the Taliban refreshing.  Afghans have long believed that they are really at war with Pakistan, which uses the Taliban as a proxy.  I first heard this perspective from a national security advisor to Karzai the better part of a decade ago.  Is it realistic to negotiate with Pakistan, reaching an agreement that would then require Kabul and Islamabad to impose the consequences on the Taliban who remain in their respective countries?

Of course we won’t really know until it is tried, but the proposition is reasonable.  Administration sources are now claiming that outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs Mike Mullen exaggerated the degree of Pakistani control over the Haqqani network.  But there is no doubt but that the Haqqani network harbors in Pakistan’s North Waziristan.  The Pakistani Army has certainly not done all it could do to pressure them there or to chase them out into Afghanistan, where it could be hoped the Americans and Afghans would deal with them.

Can Karzai do anything to convince Pakistan to undertake an operation to oust the Haqqani network from North Waziristan?  I think he can, but it will require that he do something no Afghan leader for the past 100 odd years has been willing to do:  recognize the Durand line that is the ostensible border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, established in 1893 between British India and an Afghan Amir.

Talking to another national security advisor in Kabul some years ago, I asked why Afghanistan would not do this.  The answer was chilling:  Afghanistan did not want to close off options for future generations.  In other words, someone in Afghanistan harbors irredentist ambitions in the Pashtun-populated parts of Pakistan.  I’ve told this story before, but somehow the Durand line never gets any attention in DC, so I’m telling it again.

Giving up the vanishingly small hope of reuniting the Pashtun population within a greater Afghanistan would appear to cost Kabul little at this point.  It should be much more worried about whether the Pashtuns might be reunited in a greater Pakistan, or even in an independent Pashtunistan.  Pakistan claims to have accepted the Durand line.  Afghan acceptance of it, and a bilateral agreement to demarcate it, would go a long way to removing one serious irritant and give the Pakistanis good reason to try to tidy up their side of the border.

PS:  Those who doubt the importance of the Durand line might want to read what the “tribal elder from Paktika has to say to the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN).