Afghanistan Was Hurt by the Superpowers
“Afghan Path to Peace Goes Through India, Pakistan” (Opinion, Jan. 11) was quite accurate in its analysis of Afghanistan’s challenges. There is no doubt that the peace dividend generated from the normalization of India-Pakistan relations will be very conducive to the growth of Afghanistan and South Asia as a whole. However, neither the bloody partition of the subcontinent in 1947, which displaced tens of millions of people, nor the subsequent 56 years of conflict between India and Pakistan, has been the significant factor in destabilizing Afghanistan.
On the contrary, an influx of Afghan jihadis infiltrating Kashmir has exacerbated the tensions between India and Pakistan in recent years. Many of Afghanistan’s current problems have stemmed from the last few decades of Cold War policy from the Soviet Union and the U.S., not from India-Pakistan tensions. It was the superpowers’ cynical and shortsighted interference that left the country at the mercy of the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalism.
Jagdish C. Trivedi
Garden Grove
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