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Afghanistan's India–Pakistan dilemma:advocacy coalitions in weak statesAvinash Paliwalaa King's College LondonPublished online: 03 Jul 2015.

To cite this article: Avinash Paliwal (2015): Afghanistan's India–Pakistan dilemma:advocacy coalitions in weak states, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, DOI:10.1080/09557571.2015.1058617

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Afghanistan’s India–Pakistan dilemma: advocacycoalitions in weak states

Avinash PaliwalKing’s College London

Abstract This article seeks to examine the foreign policy behaviour of weak states inregions marked by politically turbulent geostrategic environments. An analysis ofAfghanistan’s foreign policy behaviour vis-a-vis Pakistan and India lends focus to thisaim. India–Pakistan rivalry has gained traction as a key factor in determiningAfghanistan’s stability in the wake of the drawdown of Coalition forces. Missing from thisdebate, however, is consideration of Afghanistan’s agency as a weak state with anindependent set of policy preferences. Based on primary interviews with a diverse set ofAfghan political actors the article outlines two competing policy advocacies: Pakistanfriendly and Pakistan averse. The article argues that these advocacies are key tounderstanding Afghanistan’s India–Pakistan dilemma. Departing from the ethnic lensused to explain Afghan politics and its regional linkages, this article shows that Kabul’srelations with Islamabad determine its approach towards New Delhi regardless of ethnicrivalries. Understanding domestic Afghan narratives in this regional context is thereforeimperative to adequately assess South Asia’s prospective security calculus.

Introduction

This article seeks to examine the foreign policy behaviour of weak states inregions marked by politically turbulent geostrategic environments.1 An analysisof Afghanistan’s foreign policy behaviour vis-a-vis Pakistan and India lendsfocus to this aim. Not simply of empirical interest in the wake of the withdrawalof Coalition forces by the end of 2014, Afghanistan’s foreign policy behaviour inSouth Asia also has interesting theoretical implications. It defies the phenomenonthat neorealist scholars (Walt 1987) term ‘bandwagoning’ when explaining the

1 This article was authored as part of the UK–India Education and ResearchInitiative—Trilateral Research in Partnership (UKIERI-TRIP) project that was awarded tothe Defence Studies Department, King’s College London (KCL). I would like to thankUKIERI, and the King’s Graduate School for funding my fieldwork in India andAfghanistan. The ‘India–Pakistan–Afghanistan Trilateral Relations: Beyond 2001’workshop held at KCL in August 2014, and the feedback therein, added immense valueto this paper. My sincere thanks to the editors and the three anonymous reviewers at theCambridge Review of International Affairs and to Harsh Pant, Theo Farrell, Mark Erbel, MartinBayly, David Scott, Khalid Nadiri, Nina Kaysser and Kaustav Chakrabarty for providingvery helpful comments. A special thanks goes to all the interviewees who very kindly gavethe time and effort to share ideas and information. All errors and omissions are the soleresponsibility of the author.

Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2015

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2015.1058617

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foreign policy behaviour of weak states vis-a-vis bigger powers. Afghanistandoes this by balancing competing interest and aspirations of regional powersexceptionally well. For instance, Kabul signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement(SPA) with India in 2011 without seriously antagonizing Pakistan (Miglani 2011).Additionally, despite some contention, Kabul and Islamabad agreed to form ajoint commission on border management in 2014 without antagonizing NewDelhi.2 Not only at odds with the dominant theory of international relations (IR),Afghanistan’s approach towards India and Pakistan is also at odds with the fewdominant empirical works on the topic. Though there is no work specifically onAfghanistan’s foreign policy, the key argument on the Afghanistan–India–Pakistan trilateral dynamic can be captured in historian William Dalrymple’s(2013) argument that ‘hostility between India and Pakistan lies at the heart of thecurrent war in Afghanistan’. Ganguly and Howenstein (2009) also argue thatbilateral conflicts shape India and Pakistan’s policy behaviour on Afghanistanand contend that both these countries have ‘proxies’ in a fragmentedAfghanistan. These proxy groups help India and Pakistan secure their nationalinterests and regional aspirations in Afghanistan. A case in point is India’ssupport of the United Front against the Pakistan-supported Afghan Taliban in the1990s and its uncritical backing of President Hamid Karzai after 2001, as well asPakistan’s continuous support of the Taliban (Coll 2005; Ganguly andHowenstein 2009).

Missing from this debate, however, is consideration of Afghanistan’s agency asa sovereign state with an independent set of policy preferences, or even the agencyof those proxy groups that are assumed to be acting on behalf of either India orPakistan. Based on primary interviews with a diverse and influential set ofpolitical actors in Afghanistan, this paper identifies internal narratives among theAfghan political elite. Conceptualized using the Advocacy Coalition Framework(ACF), these narratives are termed ‘Pakistan averse’ and ‘Pakistan friendly’.Despite accepting the merits of focusing on India and Pakistan’s Afghanistanpolicy, this approach compels explication of domestic Afghan interpretation ofIndian and Pakistani policies. To be clear, this paper is not an attempt tooperationalize the ACF quantitatively and neither is it a systematic analysis of theMinistry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Afghanistan. Rather, the aim of the article isto open a debate on the usage of developing frameworks of foreign policy analysisto conceptualize the diplomatic history of weak states. Secondly, this article showsthat Afghanistan’s rivalry with Pakistan determines Kabul’s relations with NewDelhi. Though most Afghans would like good relations with India, relations withPakistan are key to Kabul’s approach towards New Delhi. Thirdly, exploringcontinuities and change in these policy narratives, the article shows thatAfghanistan’s policy advocacy in South Asia experienced changes after 2001.Domestic Afghan policy realigned, evolving and responding to India andPakistan’s policies towards Afghanistan, thus balancing both factional andnational policy interests. Effectively, the article reasserts a previously arguedtheoretical point that the foreign policy behaviour of weak states may not simply

2 ‘Pakistan, Afghanistan to initiate joint commission on border management’, ExpressTribune, 10 February 2014, ,http://tribune.com.pk/story/669910/pakistan-afghanistan-to-initiate-joint-commission-on-border-management/. .

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be decided by external systemic and regional factors, but is also influenced bydomestic factors.

The first section of this article places the ACF in the context of existingliterature on the foreign policy behaviour of small and weak states.3 The secondsection places Afghanistan’s approach towards South Asia in historical andpolitical context. Highlighting Afghanistan’s territorial sensitivity—manifest in itsstand on the Durand Line—it provides a snapshot of Afghanistan’s India–Pakistan dilemma in the context of the 1999 Indian Airlines flight IC814 hijackcase. The third section details the existence of Pakistan-friendly and Pakistan-averse policies in the wake of the 2001 Bonn Conference. This section argues thatthe view of Pakistan as either a friend or a foe impacts on policy beliefs,consequently shaping Afghan policy output vis-a-vis both Pakistan and India.The fourth section explains how these advocacies underwent a shift in theircomposition over the course of the war. Refracted through a weak state dependenton external sources for power and legitimacy, contradictions between theseadvocacy groups became embodied in the presidency of Hamid Karzai. The fifthsection focuses on the 2002–2005 timeframe and highlights the impact of a NorthAtlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) backed electoral political system on theethnic and regional politics of Afghanistan. The sixth section looks at the 2006–2010 timeframe and shows how the West’s fading interest in Afghanistan and thedomestic reconciliation process sharpened Kabul’s India–Pakistan dilemma. Thefinal section explores Afghanistan’s shifting advocacies after 2011 as the NATOsecurity umbrella began to lift. Islamabad’s rising importance in the domesticcalculus of Kabul keeps New Delhi struggling to retain its relevance inAfghanistan. The paper concludes that the sovereign agency of a weak state isdeeply impacted upon by competing internal advocacies, which in turn aredefined by the conduct of external powers. Therefore, regardless of India andPakistan’s contrasting public images in Afghanistan, the strategic importance ofbalancing the two South Asian neighbours is not lost on Afghanistan’s politicalelite, including the Afghan Taliban.

Foreign policymaking in weak states

The foreign policy behaviour of weak and small states has elicited multipleconceptual explanations over the years. Ranging from the dominant structuraland systemic explanations rooted in neorealist traditions of IR to the focuson domestic sources and the constructivism of identity and ideas, foreignpolicymaking in weak states has been rigorously conceptualized using variouscases. Within the hermeneutic literature of neorealism sits Waltz’s (1979)classic argument that small powers are likely to bandwagon with threateninggreat powers rather than balancing them. With the international systemassumed to be the most relevant level of analysis, this school of thoughtargued that weak states are afforded little space to manoeuvre. For Walt(1987, 31),

3 Though vastly different in many ways, the terms ‘weak’ and ‘small’ are usedinterchangeably in this paper. Given the nature of Afghanistan’s state structure since 2001,it can be categorised as both weak and small.

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Although strong neighbours of strong states are likely to balance, small and weakneighbours of great powers may be more inclined to bandwagon. Because they willbe the first victim of expansion, because they lack the capacity to stand alone, andbecause a defensive alliance may operate too slowly to do them much good,accommodating a threatening power may be tempting.

Snyder (1991, 20) and Levy (1989) support this argument, stating that externalfactors define the operational foreign policy contours of weak states, which‘bandwagon’ and do not ‘balance’, the latter being a trait of strong states or greatpowers. Labs (1992, 406) confirms Walt’s hypothesis that the availability of alliesimpacts on the policy choices of weak states, though also argues that weak statesmay value sovereignty more than safety. However, Handel (1981) and Skidmore(1994) argue that weak states operate on a survival instinct and that Waltz’s levelof systemic analysis is most relevant to understanding weak state behaviour.Given that these studies emerged mostly in the context of the Cold War or itsimmediate aftermath, it is unsurprising that most of these studies employed aneorealist argument to explain the policy behaviour of weak states. Complement-ing this line of neorealist argument are studies on weak state behaviour duringWorld War II and the Cold War by Rothstein (1968), Keohane (1969) and Fox(1959), among others.

However, as the neorealist thesis was contested using other theoretical lenses,including constructivism and liberalism within the discipline of IR, so was theidea that systemic pressures necessarily determine the foreign policy behaviour ofweak states. In a critique of the neorealist approach, Elman (1995, 171) argues that‘the distribution of power and the balance of threat do influence domesticinstitutional formation and change in emerging states. However, the subsequentmilitary strategies of . . . weak states are likely to reflect . . . domestic institutionalchoices in a number of important and predictable ways’. Building on this critiqueare recent works by Doeser (2010) and Gvalia et al (2013) that focus on domestic-and individual-level variables. Using the case of Georgia’s balancing strategy withRussia, Gvalia et al (2013, 100) argue that ‘elite ideas, identities, and preferencesover social orders . . . play a greater role in explaining foreign policy behavior ofsmall states’. Doeser (2010), on the other hand, demonstrates using the case ofDenmark that change in a small state’s foreign policy ‘is a result of a combinationof external pressures and domestic political concerns’. In an interesting studyconnecting rationalist and constructivist approaches to the foreign policymakingof weak states, Hancock (2006, 117) analyses Belarus’s surrender of sovereignty toRussia. Steering away from the straitjacket of both systemic and constructivistapproaches, Hancock employs a ‘process-tracing’ technique to show howBelarusian President Aleksandyr Lukashenka used fuel pipelines to his advantagein negotiating with Moscow, yet domestic factors such as weak nationalism andweak democratic norms forced Lukashenka to give up some degree of sovereignty(Hancock 2006, 132–134). Raising important questions about ‘hierarchy andsovereignty in the international system and the role of weak states’, Hancockcomplicates the hermeneutic approach to analysis of the foreign policymaking ofweak states. Finally, Giacalone (2012) provides an exhaustive review of theevolution of foreign policy analysis in Latin America. Covering Brazil, Argentina,Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Chile, Giacalone (2012, 335) concludes that‘incorporating the cultural-institutional context in which Latin American

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academics write enhances our understanding of national variations and hownational and international factors get connected’.

The above review shows that the foreign policy behaviour of weak states hasbeen studied primarily using hermeneutic approaches, but there has lately been ashift in favour of heuristic tools of analysis as proposed by Hancock (2012).Moreover, in addition to foreign policy analysis (FPA) of weak states, the widerliterature on theories of public policy processes are dominated by rationalist (Allisonand Zelikow 1999) and structural or bureaucratic (Moe 1990) approaches. While therationalist approach gives primacy to the state as a rational actor, structural theorydeals mostly with bureaucratic and organizational approaches to policymaking andbehaviour. Though important in their own right, most of these studies ignore theinfluence of beliefs—which often turn into powerful myths and norms in the SouthAsian and Afghan context—in shaping the course of policy. Filling this gap in thepolicy literature is Sabatiers’ (1991) ACF. Emphasizing policy change, learning andcoalition behaviour, the ACF emerged in the 1990s as a response to the dominantbureaucratic and rational choice theories of policy processes. Having been widelyapplied to the environmental, energy and nuclear policymaking of developedcountries, there are fewer cases using the ACF to understand foreign policy. The fewexisting examples include a comparative study of Swiss foreign policy vis-a-visSouth Africa and Iraq (Hirschi andWidmer 2010) and analysis of American foreignpolicy on the question of the creation of Israel (Pierce 2011) and the Americanstrategic approach towards the Soviet Union (Lee 2014). This paper uses the ACF toconceptualize competingAfghan policy beliefs vis-a-vis India and Pakistan between2001 and 2014 and argues that this framework of policy analysis can assist inunderstanding the foreign policy behaviour of weak states.

The key hypothesis of the ACF is that there is a strong causal relationshipbetween the dependent variables ‘beliefs systems’ and ‘policy change’ and theindependent variables ‘policy-oriented learning’ and ‘external shocks’, as well as‘negotiated agreements’ (Sabatier 2007). At the macro level, the ACF assumes thatspecialists within a particular ‘policy subsystem’ play an important role inpolicymaking (Sabatier 2007). The behaviour of these specialists is affected bybroader socioeconomic and political factors. Moreover, the ACF holds thatindividuals are heavily impacted upon by social psychology and that multipleactors in a subsystem should be aggregated into ‘advocacy coalitions’. The beliefsystem according to the ACF is a three-tier system including core beliefs, policybeliefs and secondary beliefs. Core beliefs are ontological and normativeassumptions about human values whereas policy beliefs are the application ofcore beliefs by policy participants within a policy subsystem. Secondary beliefs,however, are more about tactics than strategy. Though these beliefs areinstitutionalized in developed states, the influence of competing advocacies onfinal policy outputs may seem ad hoc in weak states. In the case study for thisarticle, for instance, Mohammad Halim Fidai, former governor of Afghanistan’sWardak Province, states, ‘I don’t think that Afghanistan yet has a clear cut foreignpolicy in regard to the neighbouring countries including India [and Pakistan].Whatever stances are taken are on ad hoc basis and are not well thought out.’4

4 Interview with Mohammad Halim Fidai, former governor of Wardak Province,Kabul, 27 April 2013.

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Based on primary research and using a historical review methodology, this paperconceptualizes policy advocacies of the Afghan elite vis-a-vis India and Pakistanbetween 2001 and 2014, demonstrating how Afghan political orientation towardsthe two South Asian neighbours evolved during the war. However, before delvinginto advocacies, the next section locates the idea of territorial sovereignty—mostlyvis-a-vis Pakistan, where it is challenged—in modern Afghan history.

Interpreting territorial sovereignty

Modern Afghanistan’s approach towards Pakistan is conditioned by debate overthe Durand Line (Saikal 2012). Designed to mark the British Raj’s zone ofinfluence and secure its frontiers, the 1893 Durand Line Agreement controver-sially decided the fate of Afghanistan’s contemporary territorial construct. Theagreement having incensed the Afghan leadership and divided the Pashtuns ofthe frontier region, disagreement over the Durand Line and Kabul’s firm desire toseek independence from the British led to the Third Anglo-Afghan War of 1919.The war having resulted in an armistice and Afghanistan’s total independencefrom British influence, the Afghan leader, King Amanullah Khan, in 1919accepted the frontier with the British Raj in the Treaty of Rawalpindi (1919), whichstates that ‘[the] Afghan Government accepts the Indo-Afghan frontier acceptedby the late Amir [Abdur Rahman]’.5 Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, however,wanted control over the northern Mohmand tribal agency and viewed Peshawaras an Afghan city, both of which had gone to British India. Though Kabul wasunable to wrest territory from the British, it viewed the creation of Pakistan, whichinherited Peshawar in 1947, with antipathy. Perceiving an opportunity to discreditthe Durand Line and take back territory, Afghanistan voted against Pakistan’screation at the United Nations (UN) in 1947. As the tone for Afghanistan–Pakistan relations became set as adversarial, Kabul and New Delhi bonded.Afghanistan signed a Treaty of Friendship with India in January 1950. That sameyear Pakistan claimed that Afghan troops and Pashtun tribesmen attacked itsnorthern border and entered ‘30 miles northeast of Chaman in Baluchistan’(Gartenstein-Ross and Vassefi 2012). Cross-border skirmishes between Afghani-stan and Pakistan arose in the early 1960s as the territorial sensitivity of bothcountries increased (Montagno 1963). The 1970s brought further deterioration ofbilateral relations.

The interpretation of territorial sovereignty by contemporary Afghanistan’selite and the wider population is visible in the fact that not a single Afghangovernment conceded to Pakistan on the issue of the Durand Line. Even thePakistan-backed Taliban refused to sanctify the Durand Line during its rule from1996 to 2001. The Taliban stated that there should be no borders betweenMuslims.In fact, just months before 9/11 a 95-member armed delegation of the Talibanvisited the Mohmand Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)region. Not only was the delegation welcomed, the local chieftain also hoisted theTaliban flag on the occasion, enraging Pakistan. According to Pakistani media, thevisit ‘revived Afghanistan’s claim on the area and left Islamabad shocked’(Roashan 2001).

5Article V, Treaty of Rawalpindi, 8 August 1919.

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Afghanistan’s pre-2001 India–Pakistandilemmaand the impact of theTaliban’sagency as an independent political and security actor were acutely visible inDecember 1999. The hijack of Indian Airlines flight IC814 en route to Delhi fromKathmandu by Pakistan-based militants, and its forced landing in Taliban-controlled Kandahar, demonstrated this dynamic.With the plane on their territory,it fell upon the Taliban to mediate between the hijackers and Indian officials. Aftereight days of gruelling negotiations, India acceded to certain demands of thehijackers and all hostages were released. During this time, India’s plans toundertake commando action became impossible because Taliban militia hadsurrounded the plane. Exercising territorial sovereignty, the Taliban refused Indianmilitary engagement on Afghan soil while preventing the plane from taking off ifthe negotiationswere to fail (Malhotra 2009). Crystallizing the popular image of theTaliban being a Pakistani ‘puppet’, the incident left India convinced thatAfghanistan did not have independent political agency.6 For Pakistan, this was astrategic coup bringing it close to its imagined military ‘strategic depth’ vis-a-visIndia in Afghanistan. However, the Taliban, which was expecting a diplomaticopening with India for being impartial mediators, was left wondering why Indiarefused to engage. According to HakimMujahid, former Taliban envoy to the UN,

The Taliban authorities very wisely dealt with that case [IC814] and they couldrelease safely the Indian airplane at that time. That was a point of making goodrelations between the Indian government and the Taliban authorities. But they[Taliban] could not exploit that opportunity and neither did the Indian government[exploit it] at that time.7

Syed Akbar Agha, chief of the Jaish-ul-Muslimeen and a former senior aide ofTaliban chief Mullah Omar, voices similar sentiment.8 Additionally, according toWakil Ahmad Muttawakil, the Taliban foreign minister involved in the hijackingnegotiations, the ‘key actors [hijackers] wanted to take the plane to anotherdestination, but we [Taliban] didn’t allow that’ (Malhotra 2009). Interestingly,despite India’s rhetorical aversion to the Taliban, the latter’s desire to exercisesovereign agency was not lost on Indian officials. NewDelhi officially thanked theTaliban for its ‘correct’ role as mediators, and the debate on whether to politicallyengage the Taliban or not became acute within India.9 However, the incident alsoshows that, despite being dependent on Islamabad for political and physicalsurvival, the Taliban did not necessarily sympathize with Pakistan. This raises theimportant question of how Pakistan is in fact viewed within Afghanistan.

Pakistan: friend or foe?

The Afghan political camp remains split over the Pakistan question. One coalitionis largely hostile towards Islamabad, andmany of its members advocate a forward

6 Interview with Vikram Sood, former chief of R&AW, India’s external intelligenceagency, New Delhi, 20 March 2013. Plus: interview with ‘A’, a top Indian intelligence officerinvolved in IC814 negotiations.

7 Interview with Hakim Mujahid, former Taliban delegate to the UN, Kabul, 6 May2013.

8 Interview with Syed Akbar Agha, senior Taliban official, Kabul, 30 April 2013.9 Suo Moto statement by India’s External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh in both

Houses of Parliament on the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight IC814, 28 February 2000.

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diplomatic and military approach. This could be achieved by fomentinginsurgency in Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province and the FATA by supporting theTehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). Thisidea is intended to develop asymmetric military capabilities to gain strategicparity vis-a-vis Islamabad. From this perspective, friendship with India would actas insurance against Pakistani aggression. The second camp promotes measureddiplomatic engagement with Islamabad and prioritizes Pakistan over othercountries in the region, including India. Pashtunistan as a political issue has littleresonance in this camp. This advocacy stems from the fact that Pakistan ismilitarily strong and confrontation with Islamabad is not viable. Cutting acrossthe Afghan sociopolitical spectrum, these advocacies are not static.

The# 2001 Bonn Conference brought a clearer articulation of Afghanistan’spolicy preferences vis-a-vis India and Pakistan. The four Afghan groupsparticipating in the conference—the Rome Group, the Cyprus Group, thePeshawar Group and the United Front—represented Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras andthe Durrani Pashtuns. Each group was critical of Pakistan’s involvement inAfghan affairs before 2001. Absent from the conference, however, were thePashtun Islamists—Hizb-e-Islami (Gulbuddin Hekmatyar), Hizb-e-Islami (YunusKhalis), the Haqqani Network and other Taliban figures—all of whom hadPakistan’s support. Islamabad sent Arif Ayub, Pakistan’s former ambassador tothe Taliban, and Farooq Afzai, a Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officer(Lambah 2006). India sent its special envoy Satinder Lambah. Initially isolated,Lambah, along with the Iranians and Russians, helped negotiate a settlementbetween the different Afghan factions (Lambah 2011, Dobbins 2008, 73). Pakistan,on the contrary, became marginalized as the conference proceeded and HamidKarzai was announced the head of the interim government. Former Afghan kingZahir Shah, a Durrani Pashtun and supporter of the Pashtunistan issue, headedthe Rome Group. The Cyprus Group was close to Iran, while the Peshawar Groupmostly represented the Gailani family, known for its secular royalist credentialsdespite having lived in Pakistan (Lambah 2011). The United Front, a conglomerateof various armed factions dominated by non-Pashtuns, had enjoyed India’s,Russia’s and Iran’s support in their fight against the Taliban before 2001. As forKarzai, his belief that Pakistan’s ISI was behind his father’s assassination in 1999contributed to his lack of sympathy towards the Pakistani establishment eventhough his political links with India, where he completed his universityeducation, were limited. Almost every group at the conference was averse toPakistan’s role. The reason was simple: between 1994 and 1999, ‘an estimated80,000 to 100,000 Pakistanis trained and fought in Afghanistan’ along with theTaliban against the United Front (Maley 2009, 288). The November 2001 Kunduzairlift by Pakistan was undertaken to evacuate its military and intelligencepersonnel in addition to senior Taliban figures.

Having dominated the conference, the Pakistan-averse advocacy becamesomewhat institutionalized in the June 2002 Loya Jirga.10 As for India, with theinterim government led by Karzai and dominated by members of the formerUnited Front, it was set for a re-entry into Afghanistan after six years of non-

10 Loya Jirga is a traditional Afghan grand assembly or grand council, as referred to inthe Pashto language.

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engagement during Taliban rule.11 New Delhi found close allies in the Pakistan-averse advocacy coalition constituting military commanders and leaders of theUnited Front who now took key government posts. Additionally, Karzai’selevation of Zahir Shah as the ‘Father of the Nation’ at the Loya Jirga symbolizedthe acceptability of political ideals pursued by the former king, Pashtunistanbeing one. Though a purely symbolic gesture, the elevation of Zahir Shah hadhistorical significance with regard to how Pashtuns imagined the territorialconfiguration of Afghanistan. Reinforcing this territorial sensitivity was Karzai’semphatic statement in 2005: ‘A line of hatred that raised a wall between the twobrothers’ (Harrison 2009). In 2006 he initiated ‘Pashtunistan Day’ celebrations totake place on 31 August every year. Wider public opinion, which viewed theinternational community’s renewed interest in Afghanistan as a blessing toemerge from themorass of civil war (Clark 2012), welcomed Indian engagement—framed as a ‘development partnership’—while Pakistan remained anathema.12

However, political equations changed as the war turned out to be a slow-motiondisaster for the Coalition forces and the Taliban confidently resurged (Bird andMarshall 2011).

It is important to note here that, despite the dominance of the Pakistan-averseadvocacy, the Taliban and other Pashtun Islamists (not present at Bonn) viewedthe Indian support for the Soviets and the Afghan communists in 1980s withdisdain.13 India’s covert logistical support for the non-Pashtun United Frontfurther disconnected India from the Pashtuns in the 1990s, particularly theTaliban. Dependent on Pakistan, these groups remained marginalized in post-9/11 Afghan political settings. Not surprisingly, Indian diplomacy after 2001sought to transform its image among Pashtuns. However, political alignments inAfghanistan are highly flexible. Often considered closely knit, the Taliban andother Pashtun Islamists had many differences with the Pakistani establishment.As emerged later in an autobiography of the former Taliban ambassador toPakistan, Mullah Abdal Salam Zaeef, the Taliban distrusted the ISI (Zaeef 2010).Having been isolated and condemned internationally and less than capable ofrunning a state themselves, the Taliban were politically and economicallydependent on Pakistan and the Gulf countries. Asserting sovereign agency wasnearly impossible in this context. Even Hekmatyar, a long-time Pakistan ally, feltbetrayed when Islamabad shifted support to the Taliban in 1994, and approachedIndia for armed support, only to be rebuffed.14

Similarly, rivalry between non-Pashtuns and Pakistan is not historicallyenduring despite its contemporary political intensity. In fact, BurhanuddinRabbani and Ahmad Shah Massoud of the Jamiat-e-Islami were nurtured byPakistan in the 1970s against President Daoud Khan and later the Soviet and

11 The United Front included the Sunni Tajik-dominated Jamiat-e-Islami of Massoudand Rabbani, the Uzbek-dominated Junbish-e-Milli of Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Pashtun-dominated Eastern Shura of Abdul Qadir, the Hazara-dominated Hezb-e-Wahdat ofMohammad Mohaqiq and Karim Khalili and the Shia Tajik- and Hazara-dominatedHarakat-e-Islami of Sayed Hussain Anwari.

12 ‘India and Afghanistan: a development partnership’, Ministry of External Affairs ofIndia, ,http://mea.gov.in/Uploads/PublicationDocs/176_india-and-afghanistan-a-development-partnership.pdf. .

13Hakim Mujahid, interview, 2013.14 Sood, interview, 2013.

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Afghan communists, all of whomwere close to India. The idea was to put pressureon Daoud, who was a staunch supporter of the Pashtunistan movement and usedPashtun irregulars to foment insurgency on the Afghan periphery. Ordered byPakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto against what was viewed asAfghanistan’s transgression of Pakistani territory, the ISI was close toAfghanistan’s non-Pashtun jihadists and the Mujahideen well before Sovietintervention. Sustained throughout the communist era and the Soviet interven-tion, the relationship broke after the 1992 Peshawar Accord. Pakistan choseHekmatyar and later the Taliban over the United Front’s leader Ahmad ShahMassoud and other non-Pashtuns. The latter received support from Iran, Russiaand India (Coll 2004). The next section shows how the composition of theseAfghan advocacies evolved during the war.

#Ethnicity and regional alignments

Afghanistan’s independent agency is reflected in the changing composition of thePakistan-averse and Pakistan-friendly camps over the course of the war.Members of the former United Front, the staunch Pakistan-averse group, startedactively engaging Pakistan.15 However, Pashtuns who had traditionally beenclose to Islamabad grew critical of Pakistan. Tajiks close to India since the 1990sbecame ‘disillusioned’ by New Delhi’s unambiguous thrust towards thePashtuns and the Karzai government,16 while Pashtuns, particularly Karzai,developed close links with India.17 The post-2001 new elite, with professionalqualifications and academic degrees from, and families in, Western countries,remained unconvinced about India’s role and were wary of Pakistan. Accordingto Waheed Omar, former spokesperson of Karzai and head of the Afghanistan1400 political movement, ‘The feeling at the highest level of the government [ofAfghanistan] was that India is confused as to what level of political involvementit exactly wants in Afghanistan.’18 Changing composition in this case may notnecessarily mean that the Pakistan-averse advocacy lost its dominance. Withpublic perception still critical of Pakistan and positive towards India, politicalgroups who are willing to negotiate with Islamabad often find it difficult topublicize their ideas. Operating within a post-2001 state apparatus, legitimizedand supported by the international community, these advocacies are subject todomestic political pressures. Fuelling existing ethnic and political schisms, thepresidential system that concentrates power in one individual is fraught with

15 Interview with Ahmad Wali Massoud, Kabul, 29 April 2013.16 Interviews in Kabul: presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, 2 May 2013; Hizb-e-

Wahdat leader Mohammad Mohaqiq, 3 May 2013; former political aide of Massoud ‘B’, 9April 2013; journalist Fahim Dashty [Tajik camp], 8 April 2013; journalist Omar Sharifi[Tajik camp], 2 May 2013, former deputy foreign minister Jawed Ludin, 21 April 2013;Deputy Foreign Minister Ershad Ahmadi, 7 April 2013. In Herat: Governor Daud Saba, 17April 2013.

17 Interview in Kabul: Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Janan Musazai, 7 April 2013;journalist Sanjar Sohail, 24 April 2013; Syed Akbar Agha from the Taliban, 30 April 2013;Hakim Mujahid from the Taliban, 06 May 2013; and Bacha Khan Foundation’s SanaullahTasal, 19 April 2013.

18 Interview with Waheed Omar, former spokesperson for the President of Afghanistan,Kabul, 11 April 2013.

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contradictions. As the external source of legitimacy and power recedes—for astate that has little control over its periphery—the struggle to generate domesticlegitimacy and patronage shapes policy. As a result, whilst there is a centrifugalforce that divides politics on ethnic lines, there is also a centripetal force thatunites different factions over the sanctity of a democratic electoral system ofgovernance.

Pakistan and India’s response to this internal Afghan dynamic determined thecomposition of Afghanistan’s foreign policy preferences. Pakistan responded bypolitically and militarily supporting Pashtun Islamists and diplomaticallylobbying the non-Pashtuns. While Islamabad maintained relations with thecentral government, its diplomacy was decentralized in nature. India respondedby giving primacy to the central government and, apart from some largeinfrastructural projects, focused on small developmental projects in Pashtun-dominated areas.19 While it maintained links with non-Pashtun factions,primarily Tajiks and Hazaras, its diplomacy was highly centralized with a strongtilt towards the Pashtuns. From a regional strategic standpoint, while both Indiaand Pakistan would like influence over Kabul, a strong Afghan state close to NewDelhi is in India’s interest, while a weak Afghan state under Pakistan’s influence isin Islamabad’s interest. In essence, while India supports a centripetal democraticprocess in Afghanistan in practice, Pakistan supports it only in principle. Pakistanoften capitalizes on centrifugal pressures in Afghanistan to retain influence overKabul. These disparate overtures by India and Pakistan, coupled with differencesof geographical reach, offset the importance of one over the other as Afghansattempt to balance the two. Perceptions persist, however, that India is refusing toengage in Afghan affairs to the extent of being afraid, while Pakistan interferes inAfghans affairs to the extent of being intrusive.

Three critical junctures since the 2001 Bonn Conference mark the shifts inAfghan advocacies on South Asia. First, the 2004 Afghan elections coupled withthe resurgence of the Taliban by early 2005. Second, the 2009 Afghan electionsafter the Taliban surge and the 2010 London Conference, which saw a majordiplomatic thrust towards dialogue with the Taliban. And, third, the period from2011, when the US declared its intention to halt combat operations and leaveAfghanistan by 2014. The US intervention in 2001 had provided the US little timeto rethink its long-term strategy. In what later came to be known as a ‘doublegame’, the Pakistani leadership tactically reversed its Afghan policy by vowingsupport for the US against terrorism and supporting Karzai (Tellis 2008). In linewith the ‘war on terror’ rhetoric, there was little acceptance of Islamist discourses.India, too, threw its weight behind the newly established central authority. Tajikleader Wali Massoud, younger brother of the late Ahmad ShahMassoud and untilrecently a hawk of the Pakistan-averse camp, notes India’s and Pakistan’s shiftafter 9/11: ‘It was a new age, a new chapter, so people in the Resistance [UnitedFront] did not take much notice of what happened . . . Things were so immediate,so quick.’20 As the following paragraphs detail, Wali Massoud and other non-Pashtuns changed their political line on South Asia with the changing regional

19 ‘India and Afghanistan’.20 Interview with Ahmad Wali Massoud, Tajik politician, Kabul, 29 April 2013.

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security dynamic. The next section details the contours of Afghan advocacies from2002 to 2005.

Electoral politics and security

With Pakistan-averse advocacy dominant, positive attitudes towards Indiastrengthened significantly between 2002 and 2005. However, according toAbdullah Abdullah, the then foreign minister of Afghanistan, divergingnarratives emerged early on in 2002.21 One said that Afghanistan should strikea balance in its relationship with India and Pakistan. The other stated thatachieving that balance at such a nascent stage would be impossible.22 Theinternational community, particularly the UN Special Representative toAfghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, continued to remind Afghan leaders to maintaindistance from India given Pakistani concerns.23 However, these internaldiscussions lost traction almost as soon as they had started.24 Fissures betweenpolitical factions had widened by the 2004 elections and regional balancing lostpolitical steam. Parachuted into Afghan politics by the US, Karzai’s ascendancygenerated political friction. His appointment as the interim president, from ahistorical perspective, was deja vu of sorts. It was similar to the British Raj’sinstallation of Shah Shuja, the nineteenth-century Pashtun king, or, more recently,the installation of Babrak Karmal, leader of the communist People’s DemocraticParty of Afghanistan (PDPA), by the Soviet Union in 1979. Karzai was moredependent on Washington for his presidency than on the Afghan ballot. Secretlyaccepting funding from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), he used the US topressure his opponents into accepting his decisions (Rosenberg 2013).

Karzai actively played one domestic faction against the other to maintaincontrol, a tactic he employed with equal dexterity externally. Cooptionmechanisms included luring warlords into ministerial posts and offeringadministrative positions to key individuals from different ethnic groups.However, the challenge in the 2004 elections came from Yunus Qanooni, aprotege of Massoud and chief negotiator for the United Front at the BonnConference; MohammadMohaqiq, a Hazara warlord; and Abdul Rashid Dostum,an Uzbek warlord. Qanooni had support from fellow Tajiks like AbdullahAbdullah, and Vice President Marshall Fahim, while Mohaqiq and Dostumformed a coalition. Karzai ran independently with support from the Pashtun-dominated social-democratic Afghan Millat Party, and the Dawat-e-Islami of ex-Mujahideen Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf. Against all odds, Karzai won 55.4 per centof the vote as opposed to 16.3 per cent for Qanooni, 11.7 per cent for Mohaqiq andten per cent for Dostum.25 It was only a matter of time before allegations of riggingand corruption surfaced. In fact, according to former UN Special Representative toAfghanistan, Kai Eide, the levels of corruption in the 2004 national elections were

21Abdullah, interview, 2013.22Abdullah, interview, 2013.23Abdullah, interview, 2013.24 Sharifi, interview, 2013.25Afghanistan presidential election results 2004, ,http://www.iec.org.af/public_

html/Election%20Results%20Website/english/english.htm.

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higher even compared to the 2009 electoral process that is widely known for beingmarred by fraudulent practices (Marquand 2009).26

Political and ethnic standoffs between Karzai and his opponents coincidedwith the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban. Having found sanctuary in the tribalareas of Pakistan, the Taliban quietly regroupedwhile the US shifted attention andresources towards Iraq. They began staging a comeback after 2004, targetinginternational forces and Afghan government bodies. In a secret cable sent to theState Department in 2005 by the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ronald ENeumann, Taliban resurgence was attributed to the ‘four years that the Talibanhas had to reorganize and think about their approach in a sanctuary beyond thereach of either government’ (Jha 2010). The Taliban attempted to disrupt theelections and employed Iraq-style suicide bombing tactics as well as the use ofimprovised explosive devices against international forces and government bodies(though the Taliban did not, or could not, significantly disrupt any of the threeelections). Washington did little to quell the movement despite Neumann’swarning that if Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan were not addressed, there could bea ‘re-emergence of the same strategic threat to the United States that prompted ourOEF (Operation Enduring Freedom) intervention’ in 2001 (Jha 2010). However,with the focus on al-Qaeda, the Bush administration was less willing to pushPakistani President Pervez Musharraf, its regional ally, into fixing Talibanstrongholds in Pakistan’s tribal agencies.

These developments sowed the seeds of realignment in advocacies inheritedfrom the civil war years. Both India and Pakistan had expressed public support forthe Karzai government and the electoral process. While Pakistan’s support wasconsidered cosmetic given the strains between the Pakistani President and ArmyChief Pervez Musharraf and Karzai, India’s policy signified a shift towards theKarzai government. India met members of all different factions, but mostly asgovernment representatives. Qanuni, in the capacity of minister of the interior,had flown with Lambah to New Delhi from Bonn after the conference. AbdullahAbdullah, Mohaqiq, Dostum and Karzai soon followed. Karzai visited India threetimes within a span of three years and sought aid and assistance, which came inabundance.27 India was already contributing to large projects, including highwaysand dams in Afghanistan. However, in a subtle tactical departure from suchprojects, New Delhi announced small development projects in the health,education, medical and infrastructural aid sectors during Indian Prime MinisterManmohan Singh’s 2005 Kabul visit (Suhrawardy and Agencies 2005). While thelarge projects were often symbolic, smaller projects assisted in reaching grassrootslevels in Pashtun-dominated areas. With popular sentiment in its favour andrelations with most warlords in the government remaining strong, India’s shiftwent largely unnoticed. New Delhi was closely watching Taliban movements andsearching for ways to build political constituencies in the Pashtun hinterlandsalong the border with Pakistan. Thus, as far as India was concerned, theadvocacies had not shifted and its policy remained unproblematic.

26 Eide’s statement remains contested, as many observers believe that the 2004 electionswere the least tainted of all three elections prior to 2014.

27 ‘Indian commitment to Afghanistan touches USD 2 billion: PM’, Hindustan Times, 13May 2011, ,http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Afghanistan/Indian-commitment-to-Afghanistan-touches-USD-2-billion-PM/Article1-697007.aspx. .

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For Pakistan, however, these years were difficult because the Pakistan-averseadvocacy remained dominant. Musharraf’s pivot towards the US had createdenemies at home. The tribal areas were buzzingwith Islamist hardliners as well as,according to US intelligence, al-Qaeda operatives.28 Groups like the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), formerly cultivated by the ISI, had turned against Musharrafand came close to assassinating him on three different occasions.29 At the sametime Karzai harshly denounced Pakistan for sheltering and controlling the Talibanand al-Qaeda. Kabul had already been facing the brunt of increased cross-borderinsurgent activity from Pakistan. Caught in this Afghanistan–Pakistan dynamic,the US made unsuccessful attempts to pacify relations between Afghanistan andPakistan. As this was a high-priority area, US President George W Bush conveneda trilateral meeting with Karzai and Musharraf on the sidelines of the UN GeneralAssembly in September 2004. Though Afghan elections were the focal point of thetalks, the process became an important trilateral process over the following years.Moreover, with support from his opponents, who were also in the government,Karzai government officials blamed Pakistan for harbouring bin Laden in 2004(Boone 2011). With Kabul speaking with a unified voice, and Bush tilting towardsKarzai, Musharraf remained on the back foot. This, however, changed over thecourse of war, as Karzai increasingly lost legitimacy domestically and his non-Pashtun opponents ceased supporting his anti-Pakistan stance, often in public.In India, too, the strategic worth of strong relations with Pashtuns, at the risk oflosing non-Pashtun support, came under question. The next section highlights thecontours of Afghan advocacies between 2006 and 2010.

Politics of reconciliation

While public opinion between 2006 and 2010 remained firmly against Pakistanand favourable towards India, political undercurrents changed. Pakistan’srelevance in Kabul increased during this phase, while India, despite itsdevelopmental projects and cooperation on security, grew politically isolated.In essence, Afghanistan’s political dilemma became acute as Western interest inthe country started fading. Factionalization deepened as the Taliban rose and the2004 elections unleashed centrifugal pressures. Karzai’s problematic governancepolarized advocacies along ethnic and sectarian lines as the security, political andeconomic environment worsened. These domestic fissures were amplified bychanging external dynamics. The ascendance of President Obama in the US andthe People’s Party of Pakistan (PPP) led civilian government in Pakistan alteredAfghan calculations. A democratically elected PPP government was welcomed inKabul and so was Obama. However, the simultaneous emergence of the TTP inDecember 2007 and the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in November 2008 intensifiedregional security dilemmas. While the former gradually shifted Pakistan’sattention to internal security concerns, the latter ruptured an ongoing

28 ‘Top al Qaeda operative caught in Pakistan’, 2 March 2003, CNN, ,http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/south/03/01/pakistan.arrests/index.html?_s¼PM:asiapcf . .

29 ‘Jaish-e-Mohammad’, National Counterterrorism Center, ,http://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/jem.html. .

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comprehensive dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad. From the Americanside, rather than reducing the American military presence, Obama announced atroop surge in 2009 and intensified drone attacks in Pakistan. Thesedevelopments, coupled with a weak state, further complicated Afghanistan’sexisting political dynamics.

NATO’s increasing engagement with Taliban fighters from 2006 onwards alsoinfluenced political equations. According to Karzai in June 2006,

For two years, I have systematically, consistently and on a daily basis warned theinternational community of what was developing in Afghanistan and of the needfor a change of approach in this regard . . . The international community [must]reassess the manner in which this war against terror is conducted. (Liethead 2006)

According to Human Rights Watch, more than 669 civilians were killed in 2006 inabout 350 armed attacks by the Taliban that were intentionally aimed at non-combatants.30 The proportion of civilians killed by insurgent activities inAfghanistan rose to as high as 80 per cent in 2011, only to decrease marginally in2012 and 2013. The resurgence of the Taliban complicated Afghan politics andgave Pakistan increased traction in Kabul. While Karzai’s attempts to disarm anddemobilize warlords had failed, the rise of the Taliban gave former warlords areason to rearm and remobilize (Bowley 2012). Moreover, the rise of the TTP inPakistan ensured continuous violence in the border areas. With most of theTaliban leadership either physically in Pakistan or close to the ISI, the role ofRawalpindi and Islamabad became crucial for reconciliation.31 India, on the otherhand, had little reach on the ground and almost no links with the Taliban.

The 2009 Afghan elections further ruptured the domestic political fabric.Marked by low voter turnout, political violence, ballot stuffing and other electoralfraud, the elections sharpened the politico-ethnic divide (MacDonald-Gibson2009). Political loyalties were now mapped on the basis of pro-Karzai and anti-Karzai camps. Apart from electoral fraud, which struck a blow to the fragiledemocratic fabric of Afghanistan, Karzai gave more power to warlords in 2009.This was in complete contrast to his 2002 pledge to weaken the role of warlordsand private militias in Afghanistan. Allegations of armed coercion and riggingwere also made against the opposing candidate, Abdullah Abdullah. The 2009elections, in effect, gave legitimate political space to warlords who still had privatemilitias (running into thousands of foot soldiers) and were unpopular among thepublic. Two of these warlords included the staunch Islamist Abdul Rasul Sayyaf,who invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan during the Taliban era, and theUzbek warlord Dostum. The idea was to gain block votes from the Uzbek andsome Pashtun pockets. Abdullah challenged the election results and blamedKarzai for undertaking fraudulent practices. According to Mohaqiq, ‘Karzai hasbegun the ethnic war’ (Filkins 2010). In the words of Rahman Oghly, an Uzbekmember of parliament (MP), ‘Karzai is giving Afghanistan back to the Taliban,and he is opening up old schisms’ (Filkins 2010). As a result, the central

30 ‘Afghanistan: civilians bear cost of escalating insurgent attacks’, Human Rights Watch,,www.hrw.org/en/news/2007/04/15/afghanistan-civilians-bear-cost-escalating-insurgent-attacks. .

31 This includes the Quetta Shura, the Peshawar Shura, the Haqqani Network and theHizb-e-Islami (Gulbuddin).

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government became split from within and different ethnic groups began seekingpartnerships with their favoured regional patrons. Almost immediately, India’sstate-to-state and government-to-government diplomatic approach becameproblematic, while Pakistan’s lobbying efforts with groups outside thegovernment and links with the Taliban reaped results.

Further denting Afghan political equations and advocacies in favour ofPakistan was the institutionalization of the peace process at the LondonConference in January 2010 and the Afghan Peace Jirga in November the sameyear. The idea was not new and had already been floated by British ForeignSecretary David Miliband and London’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, SherardCowper-Coles, in May 2008 (Borger 2008; 2010). The British advocacy ofreconciliation had initially put them at odds with their American counterparts, asthe latter had announced a troop surge and the idea of talks did not fit their ‘waron terror’ discourse (Walsh and Boone 2010). However, with economic recessionin full swing, the idea of reconciliation gained weight. Western discourse shiftedfrom viewing the Taliban as a monolithic terrorist entity to a notion of a ‘good andbad Taliban’ depending on which Taliban figure was willing to negotiate.However, success on the negotiation table would require Pakistani cooperation.Due to the UK’s close ties with Islamabad, London’s diplomatic offices weresought to push forth the idea of talks. The London Conference thus baptized thepeace process, leaving New Delhi fuming.32

At the conference, Karzai categorically stated that Afghanistan and its Westernsupporters must ‘reach out to all of our countrymen, especially our disenchantedbrothers (Taliban) who are not part of Al Qaeda’ (Khan and Shinwari 2010).However, the Indian Minister of External Affairs, SM Krishna, said that there waslittle difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban (Malhotra 2010). The LondonConference was viewed in New Delhi as a diplomatic victory for Pakistan inmarginalizing India. Not only was India wary of reconciliation, it feltsystematically isolated from international forums on Afghanistan—includingthe important Istanbul process in November 2011—due to pressure fromIslamabad. According to a senior Western diplomat posted in Kabul in 2008, Indiawas ‘slow footed in accepting the idea of reconciliation, and its diplomats in Kabulwere not comfortable discussing it either’.33 Pakistan, on the other hand, becameincreasingly vital not only for reintegration and reconciliation, but also to allowthe US-led Coalition forces a face-saving exit from Afghanistan.

India’s concerns about the proposed reconciliation with the Taliban andengaging armed militants had precedent. On the morning of 7 July 2008 a suicideattacker blew up a vehicle-bound improvised explosive device outside the IndianEmbassy in Kabul. The blast killed 58 people and left more then 150 injured.According to reports, the Haqqani Network had facilitated the attack at the behestof the ISI (Mazzetti and Schmitt 2008).34 A similar attack took place on 8 October2009 outside the Indian Embassy, killing 17 and injuring more than 80 people. This

32 In retrospect, the proposed reconciliation process failed and these talks had littlepractical influence.

33 Interview with ‘C’, a senior Western official posted in Afghanistan.34 ‘Indian Embassy attack in Kabul: details revealed in Wikileaks’, NDTV, 27 July 2010,

,www.ndtv.com/article/world/indian-embassy-attack-in-kabul-details-revealed-in-wikileaks-39798. .

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time it was the Taliban (Walsh 2009). Moreover, just a month after the LondonConference, a suicide bomber levelled the Arya guesthouse in central Kabul,popular among Indians—mostly Indian army and border police officers—killing18 and injuring 36.35 Though the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack,according to Afghan intelligence officials it was carried out in coordination withthe anti-India outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which had been trained by the ISI(Nelson 2010). The message of these attacks was clear: India should keep out ofAfghanistan. India’s support for Karzai, as was being noted, came with a price.Karzai had termed the Taliban ‘disenchanted brothers’ and often called them‘Talib-jan’, which means ‘Talib, darling’ (King 2010). Despite its staunch anti-Taliban line, India, having invested tremendous political capital in Karzai, had nooption but to reluctantly accept the peace process. Pakistan, on the other hand,made its importance felt by arresting Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, second toMullah Omar, and a proponent of direct peace talks with Kabul, in February 2010(Nelson and Farmer 2010). A direct channel between the Quetta Shura and Kabulwould have undermined Pakistan’s influence over the peace process, whichIslamabad was unwilling to surrender. The next sections detail how this dynamicunfolded after 2011, when the US declared its intent to withdraw its forces.

US# withdrawal and security dilemma

Kabul’s deepening domestic and regional security dilemma after 2011 decisivelyaltered advocacies vis-a-vis Pakistan and India. Public opinion favoured an Indianrole in the future development of Afghanistan and remained critical of Pakistan.36

Politically, however, fading Western interest laid bare the regional dynamic.Pakistan, given its proximity to Afghanistan, was critical in Kabul’s security radar.India, despite its growing economic might and positive image, simply becameKabul’s negotiation card with Islamabad. As mentioned earlier, members of theformer United Front camp, traditionally close to India, grew disillusionedwithNewDelhi, while the Pashtuns close to Pakistan developed antipathy towardsIslamabad. While on the surface most groups sought positive relations with bothIndia and Pakistan, Washington’s announcement of an exit plan in June 2011unleashed a scramble amongdifferent stakeholders (Cord 2011). As regional playersjockeyed for influence, domestic constituencies in Afghanistan underwent a criticalchange. Three camps emerged. First, the Pakistan-influenced Afghan Taliban andother insurgent networks including the Haqqani Network and the Hizb-e-Islami(Gulbuddin). Second, warlords of different ethnic and sectarian hues in and outsidethe current government. And, third, the Afghan new elite comprising lawyers,doctors, scholars, businessmen and other professionals, bothmen andwomen, whohad strong links with the West. Unlike in 2002, the third group now occupiedpositions in the Afghan state machinery and could influence policy.37

35 ‘9 Indians among 17 dead as Taliban bombers attack Kabul’, Times of India, 26February 2010, ,articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-02-26/south-asia/28129796_1_afghan-government-officials-kabul/Indian-doctors . .

36 ‘India: an outside presence Afghans actually welcome’, RT, 22 January 2011,,http://rt.com/news/india-afghans-afghanistan-projects/. .

37 The Afghanistan 1400 in Kabul and the Professional Shura in Herat are two suchmovements representing civil society voices in Afghanistan.

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Though pro- and anti-Karzai sentiment flourished amongmembers of all thesegroups, their method of dealing with political challenges was radically different.The Taliban and its offshoots were comfortable resorting to violence while thereconciliation process progressed. However, other warlords such as Dostum,Mohaqiq, Sayyaf, Ismael Khan, the Massoud brothers and Fahim, well known fortheir human rights violations during the 1990s, adopted a politically savvy publicimage.Most of themhaveyoung, English-speaking, culturally aware assistants andhave established foundations intended to enhance their ‘soft’ image.38 Dostumeven apologized for his violent past. Over the years in which they have heldimportant political offices in Kabul, their soft side has received tremendous mediaattention. Interestingly, most of these warlords have been charged with corruptionand own media houses that are often biased (Jafar 2009). Moreover, almost all ofthemhave privatemilitias protecting them and providingmuscular agency to theirpolitics. Ismael Khan fromHerat Province, for instance, is known to have deliveredinflammatory speeches to foment violence and has been accused by his detractorsof causing instability in his province.39 The third group, whose political reach islargely limited to city centres and the international community, advocates legaltrials of warlords and strengthening of the democratic process. While both thesecond and the third group are averse to the return of the Taliban in any concreteform, they hold deep reservations about one another. As a result, there often arepolitical standoffs between warlord-cum-politicians and the civilian political elite.Not surprisingly, to balance the warlord–civilian equations, Ashraf GhaniAhmadzai, former chancellor of Kabul University and current president ofAfghanistan had to collaborate with Dostum to contest the 2014 elections.

Power struggles between various civilian politicians and warlords haveerupted in different parts of Afghanistan. According to Sanaullah Tasal of theBacha Khan Foundation, ‘these people [the civilian professional elite] don’t havemoney, they don’t have gun, they don’t have power in the government. So this isthe reason they can’t run for the government, they are afraid.’40 Holding dualcitizenships these civilians mostly exert influence as a result of their links withAfghanistan’s international patrons. Yet in order to retain political relevance and asteady flow of funds from the international community, warlords have silentlykept somedegree of instability intact. In thewords ofDaud Saba, the strong civilianGovernor of Herat Province, the warlords are ‘politically weak’ and very ‘corrupt’.As for Ismael Khan, a Herati warlord and Saba’s bitter adversary: ‘[He] is awarlord, he is threatening people, he can kill, and he can do bad things as he hasdone in the past. But he is not the controller of the city [Herat] . . . his era is over.’41

Saba is one of the many in the civilian elite who rose to prominence due to political

38 Charity and social organizations like the Massoud Foundation, run by Ahmad WaliMassoud, and the Dostum Foundation, run byAbdul Rashid Dostum, are used to soften theimage of former warlords. On details of the children of Afghan warlords see, Mashal (2012).

39 Saba, interview, 2013, and interview with Haji Jaweed Zeyaratjahi, senior reporter,Tolo TV, Herat, 15 April 2013. It must be noted here that Ismael Khan, like many other‘warlords’, is not viewed as such by many people in his region of influence. Khan, forinstance, despite being at odds with Saba, played a critical role in making Herat aprosperous city in the early 2000s (though this was achieved, allegedly, by divertingcustoms revenue to Herat rather than sending it to Kabul).

40 Tasal, interview, 2013.41 Saba, interview, 2013.

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connections and professional expertise. Despite the Taliban being a commonadversary, thewarlords, at somepoint, were concerned that theywould be broughtto trial if Afghanistan’s civilian-dominated judicial and political system becamestronger.42 For example, Sayyaf, a Karzai supporter, actively demanded amnestyfor former warlords, which was granted in 2007. His support base includes formerwarlords, even ones from the anti-Karzai camp such as Mohaqiq and Dostum.Formerwarlords are often open to negotiatingwith the Taliban and other insurgentgroups rather than accept an authentic transformation to democracy as understoodin the West. According to Fidai, ‘I am not afraid of the Taliban that they will takeover the cities and the government, but am afraid that there will be a civil waramong groups that are already in the government.’43 This often leaves the thirdgroup of professionals and civilians politically marginalized and insecure.

Afghan attitudes towards India and Pakistan after 2011 were shaped in thispolitical context. On the surface, all three groups sought good relations with theirSouth Asian neighbours. However, their domestic compulsions, interests andambitions determined the nature of their engagement. To start with, the Karzaigovernment made sure that it deepened its political links with New Delhi in orderto keep Islamabad’s interference in check. Indian Prime Minister ManmohanSingh’s Kabul visit in May 2011, followed by the signing of the India–AfghanistanSPA in October 2011, was Karzai’s way of signalling to Pakistan. As for India, theSPA marked a departure in its thinking, which now accepted an Afghan-ledreconciliation process. In his speech after signing the SPA, Karzai called India a‘friend’ and Pakistan a ‘brother’.44 The timing of the SPA was particularlyinteresting. On 3 February 2011, a Pakistani soldier was killed in an exchange offire between the Afghan and Pakistani armies on the Durand Line (Moore andFaeiz 2011). Armed skirmishes between the two neighbours and shelling from thePakistani side increased at a spectacular pace and became a regular feature afterthis incident. Moreover, already strained US–Pakistan relations hit rock bottomwhen Karzai’s earlier claim that Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan was proventrue in May 2011. Further, the killing of 28 Pakistani soldiers in the border areas byAmerican forces in November 2011 caused Islamabad to boycott the second BonnConference in December 2011 (Coleman 2011). Thus, whereas Pakistan startedblaming Karzai for being an ‘obstacle’ to peace in Afghanistan, India investedmore in his government.45

India’s government-centric approach, already under strain since 2009, becameproblematic. While many Afghans viewed Pakistan as practising a ‘divide andcontrol’ strategy, India’s focus on the Karzai government ‘disillusioned’ its former

42 This, however, does not hold true in the current political setupwhere former warlordshold important government offices. Also, they persuaded parliament to vote them fullamnesty in 2007. See ,http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/03/10/afghanistan-repeal-amnesty-law..

43 Fidai, interview, 2013.44 ‘Transcript of the lecture by H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of

Afghanistan at the Observer Research Foundation’, 7 October 2011,,president.gov.af/en/news/3884 . .

45 ‘Pakistan sees Afghanistan’s Karzai as obstacle to peace with Taliban’, Dawn, 25March 2013, ,beta.dawn.com/news/797836/pakistan-sees-afghanistans-karzai-as-obstacle-to-peace-with-taliban . .

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United Front allies.46 In the words of Abdullah Abdullah, the current chiefexecutive officer of Afghanistan:

As far as India is concerned, we didn’t have any particular expectations on apersonal or a factional level. But at the same time it has been our advice to all thecountries involved that only listening to the government will not do the job.47

Though Abdullah appreciates India’s engagement with the central governmentand gives it primacy over factional dealings, he remains hesitant about India’sfocus on the Pashtun-dominated southern and eastern parts of the country.‘Looking at the situation there [south and east Afghanistan] and how helpful thoseassistance were towards stabilising those areas is a big question mark,’ he says.Similarly, Daud Saba, Governor of Herat Province in west Afghanistan, says thatthe emerging Afghan leadership is ‘approaching the realm of realism in itsrelationship with India and Pakistan’.48 A former minister and a senior advisor toKarzai on foreign affairs voices similar ideas and believes that India has not metAfghanistan’s expectations in the political and security sphere, whereas Pakistanremains actively, and adversely, involved.49 This had led to a re-evaluation of thetwo countries’ roles in the minds of Afghanistan’s political elite. Interestingly,despite India’s focus on the Pashtun areas, senior Afghan Taliban figures havesimilar problems with New Delhi’s Afghan policy. Taliban’s Syed Akbar Aghawants India ‘to have relations equally with people who are in the government andwho are against the government’.50 The Taliban leadership wonders why Indiahas been so averse to the Taliban when the latter has never made any anti-Indiastatement and does not want to harm Indian interests in the region. Even thoughgrowing anti-Pakistan sentiment has provided India space to develop politicalcapital, it remains unclear whether this is translating into political influence.Finally, even within the Karzai camp the popular feeling is best articulated byformer deputy foreign minister Jawed Ludin: ‘We are paying the price of afriendship, that we don’t seem to even enjoy that much because India seems to bea bit careful about being too involved.’51

Just as Afghanistan’s internal centrifugal dynamics steamrolled Indian effortsto build a favourable political consensus, they gave Pakistan the role it wanted.Despite a negative public image, in November 2012 a document titled ‘Peaceprocess roadmap 2015’, prepared by the Afghan High Peace Council, offered non-elected governorships to Afghan Taliban leaders and made Pakistan part of thecore negotiation group. Interestingly, the document was drafted by the publiclyPakistan-averse Jawed Ludin.52 To Ludin, Pakistan’s involvement, howeverproblematic, was the only solution to the Afghan quagmire. Nonetheless, ‘thisneeds to be done without giving away the accomplishments of the past twelveyears’.53 This position is best stated in the statements of the Heart of Asia

46 ‘B’, interview, 2013.47Abdullah, interview, 2013.48 Sab,a interview, 2013.49 Interview with ‘D’, former minister and senior advisor to Hamid Karzai on foreign

policy, Kabul, 20 April 2013.50Akbar Agha, interview, 2013.51 Ludin, interview, 2013.52 Ludin, interview, 2013.53 Ludin, interview, 2013.

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Conference, or the Istanbul Process.54 From the warlords’ camp, traditional alliesof India such as the Massoud brothers and Mohaqiq started engaging Pakistanactively.55 According to Wali Massoud,

They [Pakistan] wanted me to meet the head of the ISI in whichever part of theworld I like . . . they ask me why are we fighting each other when we could befriends . . . they come with logic.56

While Massoud wants to have good relations with India in the long run, he iswary of New Delhi’s focus on the Karzai government.57 Even Haneef Atmar, theNational Security Advisor of Afghanistan, believes that ‘one big mistake thatAfghanistan did was the signing of the SPA first with India rather than withPakistan. Islamabad had offered us an SPA before India did but we refused tosign it.’58 Ahmad Zia Massoud, former vice president of Afghanistan and leaderof the National Front Party, criticizes Karzai’s focus on the Durand Line issue,saying,

By benefiting from such national issues, the President wants to stir people’s supportin favour of his favourable candidate in the forthcoming polls. . . . This, in no way,will be the solution to solve our complicated border issue with the neighbouringcountries through the media and stimulation of public emotions and sentiments.It could be solved through logical diplomatic dialogues.59

Non-Pashtun politicians, who have been traditionally at odds with Pakistan, nowsay that Pakistan is a more stable partner than India for those whom it supports.The popular double game that Pakistan played with the Coalition forces inAfghanistan after 2001, despite international condemnation, interestingly, hasearned it respect among Afghan power brokers.

Pakistan’s pressure on the Afghan Taliban and politicking between differentinsurgent networks have angered the Pashtuns tremendously. The ISI had pitchedthe Peshawar Shura against the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network againstalmost everybody. It held Mullah Omar and other Taliban figures in Pakistan andsupplied fighters to the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan. Such actions hadproblematized its image among the border tribes. Military actions in the SouthWaziristan tribal agency and recently in North Waziristan also undermined itsimage among Pashtuns. This has allowed India the political space to buildconstituencies and capitalize on anti-Pakistan sentiment. Former Talibanambassador to Pakistan Mullah Zaeef’s autobiography clearly notes the Taliban’sanxieties about Pakistan. Further, according to Akbar Agha,

54 ‘Istanbul Process: a new agenda for regional cooperation’, 14 June 2012,,heartofasiaministerial-mfa.gov.af . .

55 ‘B’, interview, 2013.56Wali Massoud, interview, 2013.57Wali Massoudwas particularly unhappy over India’s lack of support for theMassoud

Foundation.58 Interview with Haneef Atmar, Kabul, National Security Advisor of Afghanistan, 27

April 2013.59UNAMA news articles, 6 May 2013, ,http://unama.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?

ctl¼Details&tabid ¼ 12329&mid ¼ 15870&ItemID ¼ 36778 . .

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Pakistan is the country that shows its back to us . . . and in that situation we haveIndia to have close and friendly relations with, because India is a country thatwants, forever, to make good brotherly relations with us.60

As for the third group and civil society members, while India appeals as a stableeconomic and social partner in the long run, Pakistan is critical in the short-termsecurity sphere.

Conclusion

The new president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, indicated clear and firm interestin engaging with Pakistan diplomatically in 2014. His first round of internationaltrips included Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan. Departing from the staunch anti-Pakistan line of Karzai, Ghani went to Islamabad seeking cooperation to bringabout peace in Afghanistan.61 The two sidesmade public statements that neither ofthem would support insurgents harming the interests of the other on its soil andexpressed intent to develop deeper defence links. At the same time, Ghani gave thecold shoulder to New Delhi, with which Kabul had signed its first strategicpartnership agreement in 2011.Whether or not Kabul and Islamabadwill be able toretain a positive diplomatic momentum in the future remains to be seen.What wasmade clear by Ghani’s overtures to New Delhi and Islamabad, however, was thatPakistan played a central role in Afghanistan’s domestic political stability and thatsustaining rivalrywith Islamabadwas proving costly for Kabul. India, on the otherhand, remained peripheral. Ghani’s engagement with Pakistanmarked a firm shiftin the balance of power between the Pakistan-friendly and Pakistan-averseadvocacies in favour of the former. If Pakistan-averse advocates dominated Kabulin December 2002, the failure of theWest to contain the Taliban, as well as tensionsbetweendifferent political groupswithin theKabul government, paved theway forthe Pakistan-friendly advocacy to emerge dominant in 2014. This does not meanthat the image of Pakistan among the people of Afghanistan has improved over thecourse of the war. In fact, quite the opposite, most Afghans believe that Pakistan isresponsible for Afghanistan’s misfortunes (Craig 2014). However, those who are inpower in Kabul and are responsible for the security and stability of Afghanistanview these issues in a different, and often, very nuanced manner.

This paper has two key implications—theoretical and empirical. Firstly,theoretically, the ACF’s focus on the interaction of beliefs with advocacy coalitionscan assist in explaining the policy actions of weak states better than systemic orstructural explanations. Opening doors for further investigation into this topic, thispaper shows that beliefs in conflict-ridden areas have tremendous political potency.Seen as a supporter of the anti-Afghan Soviet intervention and later the non-PashtunUnited Front, India managed to develop political constituencies in Pashtun-dominated areas and apopular positive image acrossAfghanistan by 2014. Pakistan,on the other hand, despite having supported the anti-SovietMujahideen in the 1980sandgiving refuge toAfghansdisplacedbywar, came tobe seen as anaggressive stateunderminingAfghan territorial sovereignty. Interestingly, as thewar progressed, the

60Akbar Agha, interview, 2013.61 ‘Afghan President visits Pakistan to reset troubled ties’, BBC News, 14 November

2014, ,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-30049115. .

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composition of political coalitions advocating either Pakistan-averse or Pakistan-friendly narratives also evolved. For instance, the Pakistan-averse advocacy in 2001constituted mostly of non-Pashtuns under the United Front umbrella. However,manyof these advocates had toneddown their criticismofPakistanby2013andwereopen to engaging Islamabad. Further, Pashtun Islamists supported and nurtured byPakistan before and after 2001 had turned against Islamabad by 2013. Despite themerit in the regionalproxy thesis, its focusonsystemic factors steers analysis towardsthe relatively stronger South Asian states. However, as this paper shows, domesticpolicy beliefs can direct policy actions of stronger states at a systemic level as in thecaseof IndiaandPakistanvis-a-visAfghanistan. For example, India’sdevelopmentalfocus on Pashtun-dominated areas anddetermination to nurture an image of being aneutral player that respects Afghanistan’s sense of sovereignty has a great deal to dowith domestic Afghan belief systems and narratives.

Secondly, from an empirical perspective, there is a need to focus more on howAfghans view their regional security environment. The Soviet and NATOexperiences of warfare in Afghanistan compel academic accounting of domesticAfghans narratives on domestic and regional security and politics. Though there isjournalistic and policy-oriented commentary on these issues, academic analysis ismissing. While works by Saikal (2013) and Giustozzi (2011) stand out for theiranalysis of domestic Afghan politics and opinion, they do not provide a conceptualreviewofAfghanopiniononSouthAsia.Theneed todelvedeeper into thisparticularfield of enquiry is not just academic but also policy oriented. With the complicatedAfghanpolitical situation—in thewake of theTaliban’s confident resurgence and thelongevity of the Ghani government in serious doubt despite the promised supportfrom the West—the role of domestic Afghan advocacies and their linkages with theregion will be critical. Afghan perceptions of the recent Narendra-Modi-led Hindunationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in India and Pakistan’sencroachment on Afghan sovereign authority will determine the nature of India’sand Pakistan’s engagement in Afghanistan in coming years. For instance, Karzairenewed Afghanistan’s demand for heavy weaponry from India in June 2014,expecting New Delhi to have a more muscular security posture under the Modigovernment (Ghanizada 2014). In the context of increased border tensions withPakistan (Buncombe 2013), the Pakistan-averse advocacy in Afghanistan sought tocapitalize upon Kabul’s warm relationship with New Delhi. However, Ghanichanged policy stance soon after and shelved the demand altogether (Swami 2014).Withdrawal of Coalition forces will further strengthen domestic Afghan advocaciesin the coming years in ways unknown. Therefore, dynamic application of policybeliefs and advocacy coalitions in the case ofweak states—in this caseAfghanistan—can add value to debates in both theoretical (IR and FPA) and empirical (SouthAsianand Afghan security) debates.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Avinash Paliwal is a teaching associate at the Defence Studies Department, King’sCollege London. His current research concerns South Asian strategic affairs,

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Indian foreign policy, foreign policy analysis and Afghanistan. His doctoral thesisexamines shifts in India’s Afghanistan policy after the Cold War. He waspreviously a visiting fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), NewDelhi. Email: avinash.paliwal@kcl.ac.uk

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APPENDIX. PRIMARY INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED BY AUTHOR

Names and details of interviewees have been released with their permission.Where permission was not granted, the details have been withheld.

1. ‘A’, top Indian intelligence officer involved in IC814 negotiations: identity,location and date of interview undisclosed on interviewee’s request.

2. Abdullah Abdullah, current chief executive officer of Afghanistan, Kabul, 2May 2013.

3. Ahmad Wali Massoud, younger brother of Ahmad Shah Massoud and seniorAfghan politician, Kabul, 29 April 2013.

4. ‘B’, former Ahmad Shah Massoud loyalist: identity, location and date ofinterview undisclosed on interviewee’s request.

5. ‘C’, senior Western official posted in Kabul over the last few years: identity,location and date of interview undisclosed on interviewee’s request.

6. Daud Saba, Governor of Herat Province, Herat, 17 April 2013.7. ‘D’, former minister and senior advisor to Hamid Karzai on foreign policy,

Kabul, 20 April 2013.8. Ershad Ahmadi, Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister, Kabul, 7 April 2013.9. Fahim Dashty, journalist and Massoud loyalist, Kabul, 8 April 2013.

10. Haji Jaweed Zeyaratjahi, senior reporter, Tolo TV, Herat, 15 April 2013.11. Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, Hazara warlord of the Hizb-e-Wahdat faction,

Kabul, 3 May 2013.12. HakimMujahid, former Taliban delegate to the United Nations, Kabul, 6 May

2013.13. Haneef Atmar, National Security Advisor and former minister of the interior

of Afghanistan, Kabul, 27 April 2013.14. Janan Musazai, Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan, 7 April 2013.15. Jawed Ludin, former deputy foreign minister of Afghanistan, Kabul, 22 April

2013.16. Mohammad Halim Fidai, former governor of Wardak Province, Kabul, 27

April 2013.17. Omar Sharifi, Director, Afghan–American Institute for Research, Kabul, 2

May 2013.18. Sanaullah Tasal, Bacha Khan Foundation, Kabul, 19 April 201319. Sanjar Sohail, senior Afghan journalist at 8 AM News, Kabul, 24 April 2013.20. Syed Akbar Agha, senior Taliban official, Kabul, 30 April 2013.21. Vikram Sood former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW),

India’s external intelligence agency, New Delhi, 20 March 2013.22. Waheed Omar, former spokesperson for the President of Afghanistan, Kabul,

11 April 2013.

Afghanistan’s India–Pakistan dilemma 27

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