A well written essay steeped in reality and shorn of the usual dose of moralistic righteousness. The operative part relevant to India is "India was not assertive about its presence here, thus failing to win the confidence of those who, hemmed in between Iran and Pakistan, considered it a natural ally." Nothing worthwhile ever comes cheap, without 100% commitment. India's role in Afghanistan has never been publicly debated in either the parliament or outside. We seem to have gradually drifted into the situation we are in over the last decade or two without a conscious and well though out policy on Afghanistan. The Indian public has not been made aware of the stakes involved. The public doesn't have a clue on what is happening in Afghanistan or the extent of Indian involvement or the games being played here or the Indian stakes in these games.It appears that our Afghan policy is being run by a small group of bureaucrats form behind closed doors. This system works very well when the issues involved are minor and the stakes not very high. Afghanistan is a very major issue with far reaching effect on affairs of South Asia and Central Asia. The Chinese system works that way, a handful of people decide on what must be done and the required resources are committed towards attainment of that goal. And it works very well for China. Our system is not geared to work that way. It is not possible to commit substantial resources towards a desired foreign policy objective without a broad political consensus. Why did we not try to obtain a consensus on Afghanistan? We know that we are not ready to commit our military resources in Afghanistan today nor is it advisable given the fact that even a small initial resource commitment may very soon increase many fold due to mission creep and ultimately become difficult to sustain without an abrupt withdrawal and consequent loss of face. So if India is not ready to commit its military in Afghanistan, how else could we have met our geo political objectives here? How far can one go without commitment of serious manpower and material resources? Perhaps much further than what we managed. But for that an internal political consensus is needed. The reason for not initiating a national debate on Afghanistan lies in the realm of the political analyst. Suffice to say that half baked measures will only result in half baked results. Perhaps Afghanistan is still not important enough to us as a nation to warrant serious thought? Perhaps our foreign policy apparatus is not yet mature enough to handle the degree of assertiveness needed to ensure that our objectives are met in a case like Afghanistan.
On the other hand, if we are to assume that the aim of Pakistan is to install a Taliban backed government in Afghanistan, how will that bring stability to Pakistan today when it did not earlier? How will the non Pashtun tribes accept the Taliban now when they did not do so a decade ago. How will Iran and Russia add to this mix? There are plenty of questions that remain. I do not see the US withdrawal as the end of a chapter but as the beginning of another. India's interests in Afghanistan will remain and so will its involvement. In future, we will see much more of India in Afghanistan and Central Asia.
