IT is August 2021. Pakistani spymasters, pro-establishment ideologues and then prime minister Imran Khan unanimously celebrate the re-conquest of Afghanistan by the Taliban. The age-old pursuit of a ‘friendly government’ in Kabul has been achieved.

Fast forward three years. The shadowy entity which goes by the name of the TTP is again present in Pakhtun tribal districts like Waziristan. The same TTP and its affiliates plan and perpetrate attacks in settled districts like Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan, in the former case directly targeting the army cantonment.

Many innocents perish, as Islamabad issues recriminations against the ‘friendly government’ in Kabul. The security establishment warns it will respond with indiscriminate military operations to crush ‘terrorism’, without explaining why innu­merable operations in the past didn’t cut off what appears to be a never-ending supply of ‘terrorists’.

The train of events is both predictable and tragic. Long before the last American troops left Afghanistan, progressive voices in Pakistan — both Pakhtun and others — had warned against hailing the change of guard as some kind of anti-imperialist triumph. Many also foresaw that Islamabad’s backing of the so-called Afghan........

© Dawn