No Easy Options for Pakistan in Afghanistan

Taliban MLRS Source Bakhtar New Agency

What a fall there has been for Pakistan from the former ISI Chief presently incarcerated Lt Gen Faiz Hameed landing in Kabul sipping tea in the Serena Hotel in August 2021 to the Air Force bombing the Afghan capital. This was inevitable given a misreading of Afghan political psyche or history. The Afghans seek self respect particularly the Pashtuns and subsumes other proclivities, that of national independence perhaps all ethnicities.

Pakistan misread Taliban 2.0 for the earlier avatar 1.0 the result is likely to be a protracted instability for the country and long term involvement in an internal and external campaign on its western flank, subsuming the very ‘strategic depth,’ that Islamabad has sought for decades. This is not India’s doing as the Pakistan narrative is portraying but their own misunderstandings and mishandling of the Afghan situation and more particularly resistance against the state in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

There are thus no easy options for Pakistan in Afghanistan as it confronts violent Taliban which is not willing to undertake any of its dictates to restrain Tehreek Taliban Pakistan [TTP] resulting in a negative spiral of actions and reactions with a series of escalation cycles.  This is not a new development and is seen in the past few years- April 16, 2022, March 18, 2024, December 24, 2024, October 9, 2025 and now February 21 and 26 this year.

Presently there is no indicator of attempts to mediate between the two sides in such a scenario it is likely that confrontation will continue.

At the same time, Pakistan choice of air strikes and cross border attacks in Afghanistan [Operation Ghazablil-Haq] exploiting vast conventional superiority will deteriorate relations further and bring it to a point of no return. This is not the Taliban of 1996 which was bounden to Pakistan in many ways today the Taliban has complete control over Afghanistan unlike in the past when there were multiple opposing groups such as the great leader Lion of Panjshir Ahmad Shah Masood.

Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani Warning Pakistan Source Bakhtar News Agency

Afghan political opposition to Taliban is fragmented and attacks by groups as the AFF and NRF are not causing enough pain to the regime in Kabul. The prospects of regime change being talked about in some circles in Islamabad is only a chimera in the near term.

Unity will enable Taliban to focus attention on external challenges posed by Pakistan airstrikes. Taliban can withstand pain for a much longer time and wage an asymmetric war with Pakistan to wear down the military and national resistance for months if not years.

Moreover, the lesson from long deployment of the  United States and NATO is clear, air strikes have limitations while ground operations are long and debilitating. The Taliban is a resolute enemy which is unmindful of the casualties to cadre while the Pakistan Army must be sensitive to reactions back home in Punjab its main base of support.

For Pakistan, the best course is ironically what the Taliban is suggesting, sustained counter terrorism campaign based on the National Action Plan for counter terrorism with a whole of government approach.

The Shahbaz Sharif [Prime Minister] - Munir [ Chief of Defence Forces and Army] combine lacks vision as well as the political and military will to sustain such a course which will be a long haul and in this case US President Donald Trump whose praise they earned now multiple times for nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize is unlikely to come to their rescue.