Pakistan’s threat to boycott the December 5 international conference in Bonn to consider the question of security in Afghanistan after the pullout of international forces in 2014 is to some extent understandable, but it may be construed as being largely symbolic. Pakistan’s protest move followed the killing of 26 Pakistani soldiers in the Mohmand Agency by a joint operation of Nato and Afghan forces on the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier in the early hours of November 26. If Islamabad did not express its bitterness even in these circumstances, the government and the country’s all-powerful military risked becoming suspect in the eyes of its own people.
The government of President Asif Ali Zardari has been under considerable public pressure for a variety of domestic reasons. Osama bin Laden’s killing and the recent “Memogate” scandal brought the civilian authorities under even greater internal scrutiny, laying them open to unprecedented political attack from the Opposition, in particular Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. In such circumstances, seen to be taking a tough stance on the Mohmand Agency affair can be seen as a natural way to “save face” before the people. It might give the PPP government some breathing space, just a little bit more leeway. It is also an attempt to proclaim the country’s status of not kowtowing to foreigners, although Pakistan has for decades been under the tutelage of the United States, whose unstinting financial support has helped it considerably.
Confabulations at international conferences to crack the post-Nato puzzle in Afghanistan have so far turned out to be shots in the dark. No concrete plan has emerged essentially because Pakistan aspires to impose its own terms in a post-American Afghanistan as it has played host to the top Taliban leadership of the Quetta Shura. This is not a prospect that other regional neighbours of Afghanistan, such as India, can look upon with a sense of comfort. Since Pakistan is not about to indicate a change in stance, its non-participation in Bonn does not carry any meaning of substance. But Islamabad keeping away, even in formal terms, is bound to cause some disappointment in Bonn and in Kabul as the conference is to be chaired by Afghanistan.
More important, as US and Nato combat troops look to commence their pullout, they would rather not have a hostile Pakistan at their back for political and military reasons. So it is just possible that in the days that remain before Bonn, the United States (and perhaps Nato) could offer the “bad boy” something to bring him around. But the ball is eventually in Islamabad’s court. Pakistan is in a state of tricky transition. Not brinkmanship or bravado but balanced calculation is likely to be its best ally.