GANDHARI’S CURSE

Ironies never cease. India built its first military air base abroad in Tajikistan to counter the Taliban ruling in neighbouring Afghanistan. Fast-forward to the present. The same Taliban have sought out India to operate from the Bagram Air Base outside Kabul.

Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, during his India visit last month, invited India, sources say, preferring the Indian Air Force (IAF) over others — the USA, China, Russia, and Pakistan.

No official confirmation has come forth from any government or their military authorities. But the buzz is that the IAF has flown its Sukhoi aircraft to Bagram. Details of this complex geopolitical move with serious implications for regional security, Afghanistan’s stability, and international relations have yet to be made public.

The context was built by US President Donald Trump’s desire to regain control of the Bagram, considered the world’s biggest military base, which the US had abandoned in July 2021, following the Taliban’s return to power. If that did not happen, he also warned of “bad things” to happen to the Taliban.

It may also explain recent Russia-hosted discussions under the “Moscow Format” about the Bagram base, involving India, Russia, China, Pakistan, and Iran. Jointly, they opposed the US attempts, citing concerns about regional stability.

Bagram may be emerging as the new “ground zero”, as Afghanistan, yet again, becomes the playground for competing forces who consider it strategically important due to its location at the intersection of South, West and Central Asia.

The irony cited above needs elaboration. At the turn of the last century, India operated from Farkhor, a military air base 130 km southeast of Dushanbe, Tajikistan. It was against the Taliban, who had captured power, and to help the Northern Alliance fight them. The Alliance fighters were treated at the hospital run by the Indian Air Force (IAF).

Ahmed Shah Masoud, one of the tallest Alliance leaders, was rushed, perhaps brought dead, after a suicide attack on him by two Arab journalists posing to interview him. That was on the eve of the 9/11 events in the distant United States. The crucial nature of Masoud’s killing was snatched away by 9/11, which shook the world.

India fully operationalized this air base in 2007, stationing MiG-29s, but wrapped it up when the agreement with Tajikistan ended in 2022.

As equations change in and around Afghanistan, India’s reported move to Bagram, as it engages with the Taliban regime in Kabul, opens a new chapter in its involvement in its extended neighbourhood. Full contours are yet to be known. Also unclear is who is backing India in this risky mission.

Part of it has to do with Pakistan. On the non-military side, India has offered to build a dam on the Kabul River, which flows into Pakistan. India ‘suspended’ the Indus Water Treaty following the Pahalgam terror attack. In the long run, it could be a riverine pincer affecting Pakistan’s major water resources.

On the other hand, Pakistan is unhappy with the Kabul regime that it once helped create. The recent Afghan-Pak border clashes have fuelled speculation that Pakistan may be provoking them to cause a situation that could pave the way for American action.

This perception gathers strength from the growing US-Pak “strategic alliance” for “counter-terrorism” as described by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Although an uneasy ceasefire brokered by Saudi Arabia and Qatar is in force, and talks are on, the Pak-Afghan border is always ‘live’.

To counter China and Russia’s forays, the United States appears keen to return to Afghanistan. With the Bagram Air Base, Trump wants a foothold to monitor the entire Eurasian region.

However, America’s return to Afghanistan is unlikely to be easy. It risks getting deeply embroiled in the long term, as it did in 2001, with considerable political, economic, diplomatic, and military costs and disruption for the region.

It could also cause domestic problems as Trump’s supporters do not favour costly wars in distant lands. A new conflict in Afghanistan would divert American focus from Ukraine and Gaza, and benefit rivals China and Russia.

If ousted from power again, the Taliban, who have consolidated their hold in much of Afghanistan, are bound to return to insurgency. They would align with the Islamic State (Khorasan Province) and other militant groups, currently their rivals, if for nothing else, to prevent their own fighters from switching sides. Trump would be making the same mistakes that his three predecessors – Bush Jr, Barack Obama and Joe Biden — had made in their efforts to combat terrorism.

With a record of dividing ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban, meaning those in support and those hostile, the US may try to divide the Kabul regime and its hard-line ideological mentors based in Kandahar. It may strike a deal with a section offering to have the UN sanctions lifted and release nine billion dollars, now lying in American banks. Its success or otherwise lies in the future.

In the region around Afghanistan, the US’s only ally would be Pakistan, although it had double-crossed it and sheltered the Taliban for over two decades. The support and the global goodwill that Bush Jr. received post-9/11 are not available to Trump. Many who joined the war on terror in 2001 are today sceptical about America’s return. But the US remains the predominant global power and could force realignments.

Hark back to history is needed. Among the world’s poorest nations, isolated and without diplomatic recognition today, Afghanistan has a record of fierce independence. In the last two centuries, Imperial Britain launched “the Great Game” to deny Czarist Russia access to the Indian Ocean. Three Afghan wars were directed from London and British India. But Britain could not conquer it. Fighting to control it through the 1980s, the erstwhile Soviet Union had to withdraw, which eventually led to its disintegration.

Following the 9/11 events, the United States and NATO powers launched the global war on terrorism. But after 19 years, spending an estimated $2.3 trillion and losing 2,324 men, they quit the “unwinnable war”. In August 2021, the Taliban returned to power. This has been compared to the US defeat in Vietnam.

All powers made serious mistakes in handling the Afghan people and, crucially, the mountainous terrain and impregnable passes. Even when poorly armed, the Afghans have managed to stave off ‘outsiders’. Afghanistan has been called “the Graveyard of Empires.” Muttaqi referred to this during the Delhi visit, even as his regime seeks recognition from the world community.

Will history repeat itself in Afghanistan, involving the Eurasian region, and the world? It guarantees bloodshed and misery.

Now, a bit of a hoary, unverifiable ‘past’. In the epic Mahabharata, after losing all her sons, a distraught Hastinapur Queen Gandhari curses that her brother Shakuni’s kingdom of Gandhara, believed to be modern-day Afghanistan, shall remain in a perpetual state of conflict. With fresh moves and counter-moves, Gandhari’s curse endures.