By Syed Firasat Shah
The two most critical times in air travel are during takeoff and landing. At these two occasions, pilots’ concentration and attentiveness of the ground staff is required for safe takeoff and landing of the plane. When the US, along with its allies invaded Afghanistan, that was their takeoff; they needed the support of strategically located Pakistan to offer its soil for logistic support, its seaports and air bases. A call from the US Foreign Office did the job. General Musharraf, the Pakistani military ruler of the time and his supporters in the later years, always hid behind the excuse that the US was badly hurt after 9/11, “a wounded bull,” which could have reacted and would have made us suffer severely, if we did not agree to the request or to be more accurate, “if we disobeyed the orders”.
During the two decades of the war in Afghanistan, the situation kept changing both with respect to the civil and military leadership in Pakistan and with regards to the morally weakening position of the US due to the prolonged war in Afghanistan and its hegemonistic endeavours elsewhere around the world, the worst being the invasion of Iraq under the doctrine of “Regime Change” and to establish “the New World order”. During these two decades, Pakistan was occasionally able to assert its position, particularly due to its influence on certain militant factions from among the Afghan Taliban, who were engaging the US and its allies in a long struggle for freedom. Pakistan was on the back foot at occasions, such as the killing of Usama Bin Laden inside Pakistan by US forces, and also acted assertively on occasions, such as the bombing of a Pakistani army check post by American forces. The seesaw relationship continued and Pakistan continued to support the US at various important junctures, such as in facilitating the talks with the Taliban, which ultimately resulted in the final withdrawal of US forces from Afghan soil. The withdrawal was hasty and occurred in a disarray, for which the newly inaugurated government of President Joe Biden was severely criticised in the domestic political circles of the US by his opponents.
The time of the withdrawal is comparable with landing of an airplane after a long haul; it needed “support of ground staff”. At this time, probably the US was expecting more support from Pakistan as usually it rwcieved at times of need. Regardless of the truth about whether the US had “requested” or not for airfields in Pakistan to provide close air cover for its withdrawing troops or to use them for drone attacks inside Afghanistan, the US needed more support than what Pakistan had provided through PIA flights to Kabul to help in the evacuation operation. Pakistani civil and military leadership were reluctant to provide an all out support to the US for obvious reasons and due to lessons learned from the past. In this whole matter, ISI had an important role to play, as it is that arm of the Armed Forces of Pakistan which had played the pivotal role in Afghan conflicts for decades.
Most probably, that was the turning point in the US-Pakistan relationship: Biden not calling the PM of Pakistan, Pakistan refusing the invitation to the US for a conference on democracy, and the US trying to intervene and influence the change of government in Pakistan. One may call the US actions according to one’s preference, either “blatant interference in the internal affairs” or “conspiracy”. In either case, it does require a thorough inquiry. One, because it has come to the limelight an right at the time when it was happening, not after decades when official documents get declassified and the truth is revealed. In the later case, which has happened many times in the history, so much water had been passed under the bridge that it does not matter anymore, whether it is the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan of Pakistan or the toppling of Dr. Musaddaq’s government in Iran. The most important part of a thorough inquiry should be to reveal if there were people who knowingly or unknowingky helped the US in its “blatant interference” or “conspiracy”.
