Afghanistan Was Always Pakistan’s Problem. Now It’s Pakistan’s Crisis.

Aishwaria Sonavane

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As the Iran war rages, the world has largely overlooked a conflict on the Indian subcontinent, a conflict unfolding between traditional allies, the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan. After declaring an “open war,” the former patrons of the Taliban launched airstrikes deep into Afghanistan in late February, targeting Kabul and even Kandahar, the symbolic headquarters of the Taliban.

While an Eid al-Fitr ceasefire brokered through Turkish, Qatari, and Saudi mediation temporarily paused the fighting, the fracture in this relationship repeats Pakistan’s historic relationship with previous Afghan administrations. Now that Pakistan has resumed hostilities, Afghanistan finds itself in a paradoxical situation. For the first time in nearly five decades, Afghanistan is at relative peace, at least internally. And yet, it is trading blows with the very state that enabled the Taliban to come to power.