Blinken’s priorities

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s strong assertion that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan will turn it into a pariah State does not reassure the region because of the US dependence on Pakistan to tame the Taliban. Even while slamming the Taliban’s atrocities as deeply disturbing, Blinken in a newspaper interview said that ‘Pakistan has a vital role to play in using its influence with the Taliban to do whatever it can to make sure that the Taliban do not seek to take the country by force’. This came as no surprise as the US State Department had only on July 16 announced the US-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan-Pakistan Quad for the peace process. Of course, a Quad in Central Asia with Pakistan in it can also balance the other Quad in the Indo-Pacific that India keeps hyping up.

However, Pakistan does not seem impressed with this balancing act or the new Quad. It has been busy shoring up the presence and prestige of its ‘all-weather friend’ in Afghanistan by facilitating a meeting of Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Wang called the Taliban an important military and political force and Baradar reciprocated by terming China a reliable friend, promising that he will not allow any force to use Afghan territory to harm China. Baradar’s meeting with Wang in the port city of Tianjin obviously coincided with Blinken’s high-profile India visit and his talks with India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who rightly pointed out that sovereignty of Afghanistan can be assured only ‘if it is free from the malign influence’ of Pakistan.

Pakistan holds Islamist separatism through terrorism as its State philosophy and it propagates this using armed religious militia like the Taliban in Afghanistan and smaller outfits in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan may get the Taliban to assure China of non-interference in the affairs of Xinjiang Uyghurs, but that concession offered to its strongest ally does not mean American interests will be safe anywhere in the world. Pakistan’s ‘vital role’ will only bring instability in Afghanistan and the neighbourhood.