One week ago in Washington, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace that President Donald Trump is the “saviour of South Asia” who had helped avert a possible nuclear war between Pakistan and India over Kashmir, protecting tens of millions of lives.
Fast forward seven days, and Pakistan appears to be at war with a neighbour – not India to the east, but Afghanistan to the west, where Islamabad spent decades cultivating careful ties with the Taliban only to see the Islamist hardliners turn viciously against their former benefactors.
Pakistan hasn't formally declared hostilities against Afghanistan, but its defence minister described the situation as “open war” between the two countries, as Pakistani forces bombed Kabul and other cities after cross-border clashes killed dozens.
According to Afghanistan's Tolo News, Taliban Interior Minister Khalifa Sirajuddin Haqqani said in his speech during Friday prayers that Afghans are prepared to wage war against Pakistan.
During an earlier round of violence October, Mr Trump suggested he could step in as tension between Kabul and Islamabad were simmering, saying he would “get that solved very quickly”.
On Friday, he was asked if he might intervene now.
“Well, I would [get involved],” he told reporters on Friday. “I get along with Pakistan very well. You have a great PM, a great general there, you have a great leader, two people that I respect a lot.”
Several intermediaries have already come forward to try to calm the crisis, including Qatar and Turkey. Saudi Arabia, Iran and China have also called for an end to hostilities.
“President Trump might also decide to help bring about a de-escalation. He could use his influence with Pakistan’s de facto ruler, Field Marshal [Asim] Munir, and also with the Taliban with whom the US signed the Doha Accords before withdrawing its forces,” said Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US.
“The most likely outcome, in my opinion, would be a ceasefire and an apparent compromise brokered by outside powers, without a settling of underlying issues. There could be temporary peace until the next round of fighting,” added Mr Haqqani, now a scholar at Washington's Hudson Institute and the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi.
Mr Trump has frequently boasted about ending eight wars since returning to office, including stopping clashes between India and Pakistan following an attack in Kashmir last year. Pakistan credits him with averting a full-blown war between the nuclear-armed neighbours; India has minimised his role. Pakistan on Friday accused India of supporting militants operating out of Afghanistan.
US involvement in the Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict seems more possible today thanks to improving ties between Washington and Islamabad under the Trump administration.
Whereas former president Joe Biden essentially ignored Pakistan following the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, Mr Trump has credited Islamabad for its arrest of a high-profile ISIS fighter last year and created an opening for deeper ties to loosen China's powerful influence over the country. US rifts with India have also altered the dynamic.
How did things get so bad?
The fighting in Afghanistan may have caught some by surprise, but this week's violence marks only a new nadir in a precipitous decline in relations between Kabul and Islamabad in the years since the US and Nato left Afghanistan in 2021.
Ibraheem Bahiss, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group specialising in armed groups and security in Afghanistan, said initial optimism in Pakistan following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 had faded quickly.
“When the Taliban took over, some senior Pakistani politicians were almost euphoric,” Mr Bahiss said. “There was a sense that the Taliban’s return to Kabul would somehow spell good relations between the two neighbours.”
Pakistan has long denied helping the Taliban, and points to the heavy casualties it sustained fighting militants operating inside Pakistan during America's “War on Terror”.
Sami Sadat, a former senior Afghan army general and current chairman of the opposition Afghanistan United Front, said Pakistan had helped rebuild the Taliban after the US invasion in 2001 “as a proxy force for weakening Afghanistan and creating a pariah state”.
A central contention between the two neighbours is Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group that has long targeted Pakistani security forces and sought stricter Islamic rule in the country.
The Taliban made it clear throughout the Doha negotiations that they would not crack down on any Islamist militant groups, particularly those not operating within Afghanistan, Mr Bahiss noted.
Pakistan has accused the Afghan Taliban of failing to rein in TTP fighters allegedly operating from Afghan territory – a charge Kabul denies. Islamabad initially pursued talks with the TTP but later shifted towards military action, increasing pressure on the Taliban to act.
Mr Haqqani said that for things to de-escalate, Afghanistan would have to promise action against militants attacking Pakistan. But “the Taliban are not known to be amenable to compromise”.
“They are battle-hardened ideologues,” Mr Haqqani said.
Mr Bahiss meanwhile said Pakistan is demanding action that the Taliban feel unwilling or unable to take.
“And what the Taliban is offering feels far too little from the Pakistani perspective,” he said. “Unless that gap is bridged, diplomacy will unfortunately take a back seat.”
Still, Bill Roggio, Foundation for Defence of Democracies senior fellow and editor of its Long War Journal, said Pakistan is unlikely to want to get into a protracted war with the Taliban.
“These are the guys who sponsored the Afghan Taliban to do what they did against us,” he said. “If anyone understands their capabilities and how dangerous this group is and how difficult it is to deal with, it would be the Pakistanis.”
