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ANN/DAWN: 21 April 2025
IN the old and new Great Game, Afghanistan has held a central position. Peter Hopkirk, in his path-breaking book The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia, chronicled the 19th-century geopolitical chessboard involving Britain and Russia.
To prevent an armed conflict between British India and the Russian empire, both powers decided to declare Afghanistan as a buffer state — until the end of the Cold War reshaped Central, South, and West Asian dynamics. Following the complete US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, and the re-assumption of power by the Taliban, the conflict-ridden country plunged into a legitimacy crisis, reflecting a coercive order in which political pluralism and emancipation of women became major casualties.
Now, almost four years down the road, the United States, under the new Trump administration, is again to re-establish its influence in Afghanistan by seeking control of the strategic Bagram air base. For the first time after August 2021, a high-powered US delegation led by veteran Afghanistan expert Zalmay Khalilzad visited Kabul in March, ostensibly to negotiate the release of a detained American tourist, George Glezmann.
Taking advantage of that opportunity, Khalilzad and US hostage envoy Adam Boehler held talks with Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister and other Taliban officials. According to reports, the Taliban’s Foreign Ministry stated that Mr Glezmann’s release was “on humanitarian grounds” and “a goodwill gesture”, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the deal a “positive and constructive step”.
The Taliban may allow Washington to take control of Bagram air base. In return, the US may help end the Taliban’s diplomatic isolation
Qatar facilitated the American delegation’s visit to Kabul and mediated Glezmann’s release. In a post on X, Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry added that the deal showed “Afghanistan’s readiness to genuinely engage all sides, particularly the United States of America, on the basis of mutual respect and interests”. Why is there a relative thaw in the US-Taliban relations? Will the Taliban regime hand over Bagram air base to the United States?
What are the implications of this recent shift for Pakistan and the wider region? President Trump had earlier criticised the Biden administration’s chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, calling it incompetent and claiming that it compromised US national security interests, particularly by leaving around 80 billion dollars of weapons and abandoning Bagram air base. After resuming power in January 2025, President Trump now resolves to regain influence in Afghanistan without the use of hard power.
The nature of the projected deal between the Trump administration and the Taliban, and whether Washington will extend diplomatic recognition to Kabul, remains to be seen. It is pertinent to mention that while India, Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan maintain low-key de facto ties with the Taliban, Kabul still lacks diplomatic and political legitimacy.
Unlike Presidents Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani, who ruled Afghanistan for two decades with the US-Nato support and at least a semblance of democracy, the Taliban’s interim government rejects political pluralism, democracy and exclusive mode of governance. By barring girls and women from education and depriving half the population of their legitimate human rights, the Taliban have reverted to policies like their previous regime from 1996-2001.
Even then, some countries, including the United States, are attempting to re-engage with Kabul to protect their strategic and economic interests. This signals a new phase of the Great Game in Afghanistan, reflective of a 200-year history of invasions, interventions, and occupations by Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States. The new Great Game can be analysed from three angles. First, Afghanistan is infamous as a geopolitical trap that lures a potential aggressor, and once the country is occupied by a foreign power, it launches resistance. History has witnessed Britain, the Soviet Union and the US, all experiencing this fate. Foreign occupation has never been possible without local support, and it is well known that Afghan loyalty can be bought. After 9/11, millions of dollars were used to buy the loyalty of Afghan tribal chiefs who deserted the Taliban leading to its collapse.
This time, the new Great Game is employing a similar strategy as Trump seeks control of Afghanistan, particularly its strategic Bagram airbase, by offering carrots to the Taliban. In the coming weeks, increased American involvement in Afghanistan is expected via soft power: aid, investments and diplomacy. Second, Trump’s core objective in reclaiming the Bagram airbase is to gain strategic leverage over Iran and Pakistan.
Notably, it was from Bagram airbase that US Navy SEALs sneaked into Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, to get hold of global terrorist Osama bin Laden. In the wake of Khalilzad’s mission to Kabul, alarmist conspiracy theories also suggest that the US may use Bagram as a base to intervene in Pakistan if political instability threatens its nuclear arsenal, to ensure that it does not reach Islamist forces.
While these claims can be rejected, the timing of America’s demand for Bagram base from the Taliban is significant. Since long, questions have been raised about the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in case there is an internal upheaval. Pakistan’s nuclear control and command hierarchy has ruled out any threats to the safety and security of its nuclear arsenal. The Taliban government’s reaction to the US demand for Bagram airbase for strategic use remains to be seen.
The Taliban regime in Kabul is firmly in position and has an anti-Pakistan stance. The Taliban may allow Washington to take control of Bagram air base. In return, the US may help end the Taliban’s diplomatic isolation and possibly hand over the $80 billion worth of weapons left behind during the 2021 withdrawal as a gift to Kabul.
Additionally, the US might v maintenance for these advanced weapons, thereby augmenting the Taliban’s military power. Third, the resurgence of the new Great Game in Afghanistan is now a reality and also poses challenges to its neighbour Pakistan in days to come. However India has reasonably good relations with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, and is also improving them further.
Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2025
Maleeha Lodhi Published April 21, 2025
PAKISTAN’S problems seem to multiply by the day and contribute to the country’s deepening polarisation and instability. Public protests, insurgency, militant violence, terrorism, centre-province friction, disputes over the sharing of water and government-opposition confrontation are happening all at once. This at a time when a fragile economy still has to make the transition to sustainable recovery from temporary stabilisation.
What does this say about governance and the country’s leadership? That despite self-congratulatory advertisements splashed all over the media, fundamental problems wait to be tackled and governance remains way short of public expectations. Billboards across Punjab and elsewhere trying to build personality cults do not add up to leadership. Nor do PR campaigns on television, which show power holders performing routine tasks, convince many people. They have a contrary effect by indicating over-anxious efforts to elicit positive public affirmation. Appreciation is earned by performance, not posters plastered along roads or 60-page supplements in newspapers touting achievements.
The plethora of challenges facing the country today calls for competent and bold leadership that understands Pakistan’s deep-seated problems and has the will and capacity to solve them. Muddling through economic, political and security challenges without a coherent plan or strategy doesn’t work. Nor does it inspire public confidence about the future. Already successive public opinion polls show a nation bereft of hope in the future. An Ipsos survey released last month, for example, found 70 per cent of people felt the country was going in the wrong direction.
Pakistan has had leaderless moments before. Individuals have ascended to the country’s highest offices in the past without having the capability or any idea about how to deal with long-standing challenges. Wielding power does not translate into leadership. That is why rule has not produced governance and the gap between challenge and response has grown larger. Politics has been more about power than public purpose. Today, leadership matters even more given the enormity and complexity of the problems at hand. The present vacuum in leadership is, therefore, especially telling and more consequential than ever before.
What kind of leadership does Pakistan need? What is competent leadership? What are the qualities that make effective leaders? It is, above all, having a vision that captures the public imagination and charts a way that goes beyond the moment to what is possible in the future. Effective leadership not only requires setting out a vision but also a strategy to implement it and forging national consensus to support it. Leadership means setting a clear direction, decisively embarking on a transformational path, showing courage and willingness to take risks and overcoming the resistance that inevitably comes from vested interests and entrenched elites. Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s leadership embodied these qualities and serves as an example of how impactful leaders can change the course of history. But most of those who came after him, including the current crop of leaders, have been both uninspired and uninspiring.
Leadership also involves setting the highest standards of integrity and having an unblemished reputation for probity. It means choosing a team that embodies qualities of both competence and integrity. Indeed, putting the right people in the right job is an essential attribute of a smart leader. A team should be predicated on merit and ability, not ‘connections’, personal loyalty or considerations of political patronage. Another ingredient of leadership is the ability to connect to citizens, show empathy for their concerns, understand their aspirations and respond to them. It means winning their trust and motivating them to support the leader’s transformational agenda.
Judged against this criterion, it is apparent how far the country’s present leaders in power fall short of this test. The lack of vision is evident. But so is the absence of a comprehensive, coherent plan to address overlapping challenges. Firefighting problems is all that has been on display, which is a stopgap approach that doesn’t solve problems. No credible strategy has been evolved, for example, to deal with Balochistan, a province in turmoil and where public disaffection has reached a record high. The dispute over the sharing of water between the Punjab and Sindh governments remains unresolved, with federal government leaders looking the other way rather than resolving the canal issue.
No vision has guided the current leadership’s economic management, which has lacked a serious effort to tackle structural problems that have landed the country in perennial financial crisis. Government leaders remain trapped in a cycle of crisis management, prioritising short-term fixes over long-term solutions, and shying away from the bold reforms needed to break the dysfunctional status quo, unlock the country’s growth potential and promote sustainable development.
The weak legitimacy of government leaders has denuded them of credibility because controversy over how they were elected in a disputed poll never went away. Governance has been ad hoc and characterised by short-term thinking. The bloated team chosen to run the country does have a few competent professionals, but its overall character has been determined by factors other than merit; a telling example is that top positions are occupied by those with close family connections.
As for another crucial attribute of leadership, which is being able to inspire people and forge a strong connection and trust with citizens, this too is conspicuous by its absence. Instead, our leaders are increasingly disconnected both from facts on the ground and the needs and aspirations of ordinary people. They have shown little ability to enthuse and unite the country. They also lack communication skills needed in today’s world to reach out to and influence citizens.
In his seminal book Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy, Henry Kissinger wrote: “Ordinary leaders seek to manage the immediate; great ones attempt to raise their society to their vision.” Leaders shape history, he says, when they transcend the circumstances they inherit and carry their societies to the frontiers of the possible. Pakistan today yearns for such leadership with a vision to break from an unedifying past and create a hopeful future for the country. It’s time for citizens to make a collective effort to demand a better leadership.
The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.
Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2025
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DAWN EDITORIAL: 21 April 2025
AS the bloodbath in the Middle East continues unabated — from the Israeli genocide in Gaza, to the American aggression against Yemen — the ‘democracies’ of the West as well as members of the ‘ummah’ remain unmoved by the grievous loss of life.
On Friday, the Americans struck an oil facility in the Yemeni port of Hodeidah, ostensibly to degrade the capabilities of the pro-Iran Houthi movement, which acts as Yemen’s de facto government. Nearly 80 people were reportedly killed in the attack, which has been described as the bloodiest since Washington began its anti-Houthi campaign in January 2024, ostensibly to assure ‘freedom of navigation’ in the Red Sea, and protect Israel. While there is disagreement on a wide range of issues, both the Trump administration and its predecessor were convinced that that Yemen must be relentlessly bombed.
Meanwhile in Gaza, there is no end to the butchery, as the death toll since Oct 7, 2023, has reached over 51,000. Just under 100 people were massacred on Thursday and Friday by Tel Aviv, with more butchery over the weekend.
While every human life is supposed to matter, it seems that to many in the world, the people of Yemen and occupied Palestine are not human. The argument that ‘only’ the Houthis are being bombed in Yemen is not convincing, as it is impossible to prevent civilian casualties in such widespread, indiscriminate bombing. Moreover, many of the facilities Washington hits are also used by civilians, which translates to more suffering for the Yemeni people, who have already endured a decade of war.
Earlier, the US and its Western allies were backing the Saudi war against the Houthis; now Washington has taken matters into its own hands, supposedly to counter Iran and protect Israel from the Yemeni threat.
Gaza, of course, is a textbook case of how a modern genocide is carried out. Hamas has said it is willing to release all Israeli hostages if Tel Aviv stops the war and withdraws from Gaza. The warmongers in Israel, however, do not seem interested in the offer.
The butchery in Gaza and Yemen — as well as Israeli aggression against Syria and Lebanon— shows that the old, West-led ‘rules-based order’ is dead. In fact, Washington and Tel Aviv freely spread disorder wherever they deem fit, even if it means violating the sovereignty of nations. A very dangerous precedent is being set here. It shows that earlier protestations about ‘human rights’ and ‘rule of law’ were mere eyewash; it is raw power that inspires and motivates states in the international arena. In the Middle East it is the law of the jungle that prevails. However, those behind the aggression should remember that this reckless behaviour can spark a much wider conflict which will be very difficult to contain.
Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2025
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Naseer Memon DAWN: April 21, 2025
CONFLICT over the waters of the Indus is more than a century old.
British-era documents provide evidence that Sindh — when it was governed by Bombay — protested against the waters’ upstream diversion through a series of projects in the Punjab. The Bombay administration always viewed upstream diversion as detrimental to Sindh’s share, and argued against the construction of the Thal and Haveli canals in the 1920s.
The Punjab constructed canal colonies in the 1880s by diverting the water from the tributary rivers. Water withdrawal by Punjab during the Rabi season increased from 1,400 cusecs in 1867-68 to 28,000 cusecs in 1921-22. The Punjab’s canal-irrigated area swelled exponentially from three million acres to 14m acres between 1885 and 1947.
After the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty was concluded, Sindh lost a huge quantum of water as two big reservoirs and eight inter-river link canals were constructed to sustain the command areas of the three eastern rivers handed over to India.
Over the years, the water conflict snowballed into acrimony as the lower riparian accused the upper riparian of frequently breaching commitments and agreements.
The Pakistani Constitution provides instruments for conflict resolution.
However, institutions in this category have arguably lost their credibility in the eyes of the lower riparian, especially when a Supreme Court chief justice was seen to be passionately pursuing a funding campaign for new dams some years ago. Similarly, the complaint has been that the central government and its water management body Wapda act as an extension of the Punjab government.
The recent controversy over the construction of new canals on the Indus system has rattled Sindh. Unfortunately, two important dispute resolution forums — the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) and the Council of Common Interests (CCI) — suffer from a serious lack of credibility.
Irsa is mandated to regulate and distribute surface waters amongst the provinces as per the Water Apportionment Accord, 1991. In essence, it is an oversight entity meant to take decisions based on technical merit, and not the whims of the upper riparian. However, Sindh says that Irsa has succumbed to pressure and issued a water availability certificate (temporarily suspended by the Sindh High Court) for the Cholistan canal. Sindh’s concerns were overlooked by a majority vote at Irsa in favour of the controversial waterway, widening the province’s mistrust of the centre.
Earlier, Irsa had dangled the peculiar proposal of amending the law to make itself subservient to the centre. Shockingly, this was intended to render Irsa’s provincial representatives spineless before a mighty chairman to be appointed from the federal bureaucracy. The proposed amendment to the Irsa Act would have distorted the body’s federal character.
Sadly, no federal member has been appointed from Sindh in Irsa for the last 15 years. The seat has been occupied by Punjab-domiciled officers in violation of the law that makes the appointment of a federal member from Sindh mandatory.
The Sindh High Court recently issued a decree to implement Clause C of the executive order issued by former president Gen Pervez Musharraf in July 2000. The executive order — later protected under Article 270-AA of the Constitution — recognised Sindh’s vulnerability as the lower riparian and made the appointment of a federal Irsa member from Sindh compulsory.
The constitutionally empowered CCI is seen as underpinning the federation. Under Article 154, it is supposed to “formulate and regulate policies in relation to matters in Part-II of the Federal Legislative List and … exercise supervision and control over related institutions”.
Article 155 delineates the CCI’s role in water-related conflicts, stipulating that “if the interests of a province, the federal capital or any of the inhabitants thereof, in water from any natural source of supply or reservoir, have been or are likely to be affected prejudicially”, the aggrieved party can lodge a complaint with the CCI.
Article 154 (4) stipulates that “the decisions of the Council shall be expressed in terms of the opinion of the majority”. Although Sindh has lodged a complaint against Irsa’s water availability certificate for the Cholistan canal, there is little hope of any solace. Going by the book, the CCI can simply outvote Sindh as four of the eight members of the present body belong to Punjab. One federal minister from KP is also a member of the ruling party. Such a skewed structure erodes the CCI’s impartiality and credibility.
In the spirit of the federation, sensitive matters should be settled with consensus at Irsa and the CCI. Amendments to the structure and rules of business to this effect have become necessary to restore the withered credibility of these institutions.
The writer is a civil society professional.
nmemon2004@yahoo.com
Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2025
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DAWN EDITORIAL: 21 April 2025
FOREIGN Secretary Amna Baloch’s trip to Dhaka has breathed new life into Pakistan’s long-dormant relationship with Bangladesh. Talks were held after a diplomatic pause of 15 years in a cordial atmosphere. For too long, ties had been icy, particularly under the ousted Awami League government of Sheikh Hasina, which was closely aligned with New Delhi and maintained a distance from Islamabad. With a different administration in Dhaka, the space has opened up for Pakistan and Bangladesh to turn a new page. A number of topics were discussed at Thursday’s meeting. The two sides welcomed the launch of direct shipping between Karachi and Chittagong and underscored the need to resume direct air links, facilitate visas and deepen trade. These steps are essential to rebuilding trust and improving people-to-people contact. Pakistan offered academic opportunities in agriculture, while Bangladesh extended technical training in fisheries and maritime studies. The two also explored enhanced cultural and media cooperation, including performances and artist exchanges.
During the consultations, Dhaka reportedly reiterated its long-standing demand for an apology for the events of 1971. While the Foreign Office acknowledged that “outstanding issues” were discussed, it emphasised that both sides expressed their respective positions respectfully. Pakistan has previously shown willingness to engage on this front — with then president Pervez Musharraf having expressed regret during his 2002 visit to Dhaka over the “excesses” of that period. Still, such issues — however sensitive — should not stand in the way of renewed cooperation. In fact, they can be addressed through continued dialogue. Islamabad must remain open to such conversations, even as it seeks to advance broader ties. There is already progress to build on: direct private trade resumed last November after decades of interruption, and government-to-government imports followed soon after. High-level contacts, including at the D-8 summit and through telephone exchanges between leaders, indicate a mutual willingness to move forward. As the region grapples with shifting alliances and economic uncertainty, stronger ties between Pakistan and Bangladesh serve both nations. Increased trade, academic collaboration and people-to-people exchanges — including scholarship opportunities and cultural engagement — must be prioritised. This is a relationship that deserves far more attention than it has received in recent years. The foundations for reconciliation have been laid. It is time to build upon them.
Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2025
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