Speaking in Germany at the annual Munich Security Conference, foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari expressed Pakistan’s collective dismay at Afghanistan’s interim governance. Asserting that the Taliban was unable to listen to reason, especially with relation to the educational rights of women and their unapologetically misogynistic views on society, the foreign minister accentuated his stance on the fact of the matter being that the onus of the blame laid in the United States’ hands.
“Whatever is going on in Afghanistan at the moment is a direct result of NATO and the United States up and leaving from Afghanistan,” contended Mr Bhutto-Zardari. He went on to propound that if the United States, or NATO, were interested in dealing with another party in the matter, then they should not have abandoned Afghanistan. “A lack of resistance exists with respect to the Taliban. It is a fool’s paradise.”
In this case, the fool’s paradise currently harbours over forty million inhabitants stranded in captivity at the hands of the Taliban. The foreign minister is right to harbour contempt for the west’s reaction to the matter post-2021; “if you prefer dealing with ISIS, or Daesh, then take them, instead.”