When Af is left to Pak

The Pakistani political leadership is weak and devoid of any intellect. Its diplomacy is entirely India-China-US focused and suffers from a presumptive view of Afghanistan as a vassal

- SHEKHAR GUPTA

The cruelest threat in the life of acommentator isthatall of one’s writingis available forscrutiny and fact-checks for eternity. You may get away with an error of fact, interpretation or, God forbid, a prediction for now, but itcomesbackto haunt you at some point. The arrival of Google has made it much, much worse. So, Shekhar Gupta, in your 1983 India Today cover story on Sunil Gavaskar you said his son Rohan was namedafter the West Indian idol Rohan Kanhai, and bats left-handed like him? Of course, guilty as charged, with the crime of not knowing Rohan Kanhai was right-handed.

That’s why when you think you've been proven right, you should claim vindication. Not always or even often, but when it’s something counterintuitive that drew widespread criticism and scepticism, even ridicule, when you first wrote it. As I did with a National Interest on November 21, 2011, headlined “Leave Af to Pak.” As a semi-war breaks out on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border involving jets, drones and artillery, it’s my time to say, I told you so 1s years ago.

How can you leave Afghanistan to Pakistan? We should be there in strength, even by way of an arrangement with the Americans or the regime they leave behind, as a sizable threat to Pakistan’s rear. Of course, it’s India’s opportunity, and youare saying leave Af to Pak? These were some of the responses then. The angriest criticism, as you'd expect, came from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and military veterans who want to be fighting the Pakistanis 24x7x365x eternity, and never mind the geography. I will summarise the criticism as follows:

When the Americans leave, Pakistan will turn Afghanistan into its vassal state.

Even if they don’t colonise Afghanistan, they will have a puppet government, fulfilling their fantasy of strategic depth. Pakistan’s narrow geography and the lack of depth (as exposed once again during Operation Sindoor) has been achronic bugbear with Pakistani strategists.