Who is the real winner of the war in Afghanistan?

Just days after the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, his flag was already flying atop a large mosque in the Pakistani capital.

It was a defiant gesture to annoy Americans. But it was also an indication of who the real winners were in the 20-year war in Afghanistan.

On the surface, Pakistan was an ally of the United States in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Over the past two decades, its military has secured tens of billions of dollars in U.S. aid, even as Washington recognizes that much of the money has gone missing in undeclared activity.

However, since this relationship began after the 9/11 attacks, it has been hampered by disappointments and interestis fragmented.

It should not be forgotten that the Afghan Taliban that the Americans fought against are, to a large extent, athe creation of the intelligence service Pakistan (ISI), which looked after and protected Taliban assets inside Pakistan throughout the war.

Tribal leaders say in the past three months, as the Taliban has been rampaging in Afghanistan, the Pakistani military has received a wave of new border fighters from shelters in Pakistan.

It was the final blow to the American-trained Afghan security forces.

“The Pakistanis and the ISI think they won in Afghanistan,” said Robert Grenier, former CIA station chief in Pakistan.

But, he warned, Pakistanis have to be careful what they want.

“If the Afghan Taliban become the rulers of a pariah state, which is likely, Pakistan will be tied for them “.

Pakistan’s already fragile reputation in the West is likely to crumble now that the Taliban have taken control of Afghanistan.

Petitions to sanction Pakistan have already circulated on social networks.

In the absence of foreign funding, Pakistan is forced to depend on Drug traffics jihadists, encouraged by the new rulers in Kabul.

A Taliban-ruled state on its border will undoubtedly embolden the Taliban and other Islamist militants inside Pakistan.

Let us not forget that relations with the United States, already in decline, will deteriorate further.

In addition to maintaining the balance of nuclear arsenal From Pakistan, Americans now have less incentive to do business with Pakistan.

So the question for Pakistanis is:

What will they do with the deteriorated country they have as a trophy?

Pakistan, along with Russia and China, is already helping to fill the void left by the Americans.

The embassies of these three countries have remained open since the capture of Kabul by the Taliban.

One of Afghanistan’s new rulers is Khalil Haqqani, a Pakistani Taliban protege who often visited the Pakistani army headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Known to U.S. intelligence services as the Taliban envoy for al-Qaeda, Haqqani presented himself in Kabul last week as his new security chief, blatantly armed with an American-made M4 rifle and ‘a protection squad dressed in US military combat gear.

“Governing a country devastated by war will be a great test and an impressive challenge, especially since the Taliban have been a belligerent force and none of them are experts in governance,” Malleeha wrote this week. Lohdi, who was Pakistan’s Ambassador to Pakistan. United Nations, in a column in The Dawn newspaper.

During the war, the Americans tolerated the double game of Pakistan because they did not see many alternatives and they preferred to wage a chaotic war in Afghanistan to fight with a Pakistan which possesses nuclear weapons.

In addition, Pakistani ports and airfields provided the main points of entry and supply lines for US military equipment needed in Afghanistan.

Pakistan helped, though, according to US officials, its spy agency provided the Taliban with planning support, training expertise and sometimes on the ground advice throughout the war.

Although Pakistan has apparently been an ally of the United States, it has always worked for its own interests, as all countries do.

Among those interests was not a large American presence on its border, an autonomous Afghanistan with a democratic government that could not control even a strong and centralized army.

Pakistan’s objective in Afghanistan was rather to create a sphere of influence to hinder his sworn enemy: India.

Pakistanis insist India is using separatist groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army, which operates from shelters in Afghanistan, to incite dissidents in Pakistan.

“The Pakistani military believes that Afghanistan offers a strategic aspect against India, which is its obsession,” said Bruce Riedel, former adviser on South Asian affairs to the Pakistani governments. George W. Bush and Barack obama, “The United States encouraged India to support the United States-backed Afghan government after 2001, exacerbating military paranoia.”

The connection between the Pakistanis and the triumphant Haqqani was indisputable and indispensable for the victory of the Taliban, said Douglas London, former head of the CIA in the fight against terrorism in South and West Asia.

Pakistani army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa and ISI director Hameed Faiz have met Haqqani “on a recurring basis,” London said.

Haqqani’s extended family has long been known to live in the ungoverned areas of Pakistan along the Afghan border.

“The United States continued to pressure Bajwa to hand over Khali Haqqani and two other Haqqani leaders to them, but Bajwa always said:

“Tell us where they are,” explained London, who wrote an upcoming autobiography on his CIA years: “The Recruiter. “

My favorite quote is when Bajwa says:

“Just come to my office and we’ll pick you up by helicopter.” “

He mentioned that Pakistan’s aid covered a range of services.

There were shelters in the border areas of Pakistan, particularly in the town of Quetta, which housed Afghan Taliban fighters and their families.

Medical services treated wounded combatants, sometimes in hospitals in Karachi and Peshawar, the main cities.

The freedom the Haqqani had in Pakistan to administer lucrative real estate transactions, smuggling and others kept their war machine running.

London mentioned that for fear of being caught in Afghanistan with irrefutable evidence for the Americans, the ISI has almost always kept its operations out of the conflict itself.

The ISI also provided assets to the Taliban to raise their international level.

Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar traveled with a Pakistani passport to attend the peace talks in Doha, Qatar, and to meet in Tianjin, China, Wang Yi, the foreign minister.

“The Afghan Taliban would not be where they are without the help of the Pakistanis,” London said.

Washington’s relations with Pakistan cooled after US land, sea and air teams in 2001 assassinated Osama bin Laden in a safe house near the Pakistani military academy.

Senior US officials have stopped going to Pakistan and cut aid.

Despite strained relations, the United States continues to work in Pakistan through the Department of Energy to help ensure the security of weapons and fissile material, said Toby Dalton, co-director of the Fund’s nuclear policy program. Carnegie.

But Pakistan is also agile in its alliances. China, a long-time patron of Pakistan – the two consider themselves to have “an interdependent relationship” – is investing heavily in Pakistani infrastructure.

China publicly declares that it is happy to see the Americans leaving Afghanistan and that it is ready to fill the void and expand its Belt and Road initiative in Afghanistan, where it hopes to extract minerals.

However, in private, the Chinese are cautious. Some Chinese workers in Pakistan have been killed in terrorist attacks, which could spell trouble in Afghanistan.

In addition, the Taliban prefer to be isolated rather than having roads and roadblocks that could serve to weaken control over their population.

The director of international security of the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London, Sajjan Gohel, assured that China expects Pakistan to play the role of moderator in Afghanistan.

“It seems that, through their mutual ties with Pakistan, the Chinese are confident that they will be able to obtain greater guarantees of security from the Taliban,” Gohel said.

Members of the Taliban group in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 22, 2021 (Victor J. Blue / The New York Times)

Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar and Zia ur-Rehman from Karachi.

c. 2021 The New York Times Company