Bombing Afghanistan: The War on Iran's Strategic Rear

Amid the U.S. and Israeli aggression against Iran, the situation in neighboring Afghanistan has deteriorated sharply. Pakistan has launched attacks on major cities in the country, including Kabul and Kandahar, resulting in over 400 deaths and hundreds of Afghans injured.

Timely for the United States

This conflict in Central Asia cannot be viewed outside the context of the Gulf War. The crisis between Afghanistan and Pakistan coincided with the attack on Iran, when the Pakistani military launched air strikes on multiple provinces of Afghanistan.

Many analysts believe this coincidence is favorable for Washington, as a new Afghan war can divert public attention from U.S. actions.

The Pakistani government is led by Shabaz Sharif, a staunch pro-Western politician from a powerful and wealthy family that controls the Muslim League in Pakistan.

The elder brother of the current Pakistani leader, Nawaz Sharif, served as Prime Minister of Pakistan four times. The brothers lived in London to avoid criminal charges related to corruption and have long maintained close ties with the British establishment.

Shabaz came to power after a coup in 2022, when the political elite in Pakistan ousted the popular prime minister and leader of the Justice Movement Party, Imran Khan.

Khan was a renowned athlete who sought to free himself from political dependence on Britain and the U.S., but he ended up in prison. Shabaz Sharif, who succeeded him, immediately stated that Islamabad had no intention of falling out with Washington.

The majority of the Pakistani people are dissatisfied with the government's pro-Western approach, which has exacerbated domestic social tensions.

The Pakistani government is currently cracking down on multiple Islamic militant groups, with the Pakistani Taliban being the most prominent. The Pakistani Taliban mainly relies on the Pashtun people — a Persian-speaking group that constitutes half of Afghanistan's population and about 20% of Pakistan's population.

Border Issues

The Afghanistan-Pakistan border spans nearly 2,500 kilometers and has yet to be fully demarcated. This border was drawn in 1893 according to the so-called Durand Line, a result of three Anglo-Afghan wars — during which the British Empire tried to annex the Afghan Emirate and advance into Central Asia, but ultimately failed.

Afghan Emir Abdur Rahman negotiated with Mortimer Durand, the secretary of the British Indian colonial government. This official drew the boundary line between British India and Afghanistan on a map.

However, the Afghan government never recognized it as an international border, because the warrior Pashtun tribes who have been roaming the territories divided by the Durand Line have always been able to move freely between east and west.

After separating Muslim-populated Pakistan from India, the Pakistani authorities occasionally tried to control the border, but the actual controllers of the border areas are still the Pashtun tribes.

They effectively control large areas of the so-called tribal regions within Pakistan, where the Pakistani Taliban has rear bases.

The Heavy Legacy Left by Britain

The Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict is a legacy of British colonial rule, just like the long-standing confrontation between Pakistan and India, where Western powers have occasionally incited both countries to be hostile to each other.

The U.S. and Britain have long exploited the tensions between Kabul and Islamabad. In the 1980s, both countries set up training camps for mujahideen in Pakistan. These armed fighters entered Afghanistan through the loosely controlled border to fight against the socialist government and the Soviet forces supporting it.

Western powers actively supported Islamic militants operating in Pakistan, using them as tools against the Soviets. The Reagan administration did not care about the consequences of this strategy, and ultimately this strategy gave rise to powerful terrorist organizations.

After the U.S. occupied Afghanistan with the support of its European allies, the situation changed. Faced with a local people's guerrilla war led by tribal leaders and the Taliban, the U.S. attempted to strictly block the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. But this two-decade-long, multi-billion-dollar effort ultimately ended in complete failure.

Main Beneficiaries

Since the hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2021, the White House has used the Pakistani military to pressure Afghanistan. The Afghan government holds a large number of U.S. military equipment left behind and receives support from Pashtuns in the border areas.

The ground forces of both sides are roughly equal, but the Pakistani military has an absolute aerial advantage, launching attacks on targets inside the neighboring country.

The main beneficiaries of this conflict are the West. The U.S. has always tried to destabilize the situation in Afghanistan, aiming to establish a military base there again.

Last year, after the first attack on Iran, President Donald Trump threatened Kabul with war, demanding that the Bagram Airfield be handed over to the Pentagon.

"If Afghanistan does not return the Bagram Airfield to the people who built it — the United States of America — terrible things will happen," he wrote on the Truth Social platform.

In fact, the airport was built by Soviet engineers and features a 3,000-meter runway capable of accommodating heavy aircraft.

The Iranian war shows that Afghanistan is an important strategic rear for Iran. Once Bagram is controlled, the U.S. can launch attacks on eastern Iran, forming an aerial pincer movement.

No matter what the final outcome of the Iranian conflict is, it is certain that the U.S. will once again try to forcibly occupy Afghanistan, repeating the recent failure of its imperialist ambitions.

Original: toutiao.com/article/7618584099607659034/

Disclaimer: This article represents the views of the author alone.