Monitoring Desk: Former Director General Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) Lt. General (Retd) Asad Durrani has said that regional alignments in the last decade have changed for Pakistan and joining Iran, Turkey, Russia, and China has opened new avenues for Pakistan.
He stated that he had done our positioning a decade ago and we had managed good balancing with Turkey, Russia, China and Iran. “Now it is important for Pakistan to play a pivotal role in Regional Bloc (Turkey, Russia, China and Iran) and it would determine Pakistan’s consolidated position in the region.
He added that Saudi Arabia is no more as important for Pakistan as it was in past because of several reasons including changing situations in the Middle East where the Saudi Arabian group (refereeing UAE) is a partner of Israel.
He believes that in any regional strategic need, Turkey, China, Russia, and Iran would be more helpful for Pakistan for all purposes instead of US or Saudi Arabia.
Lt. Gen Durrani who is authored of several strategic papers and books believes that Political Engineering in Pakistan has always backfired and those targeted came back to power with a vengeance.
In an interview with famous anchor and journalist Iftikhar Ahmad in his show on Badalo YouTube channel, Gen Durrani revealed that Pakistan had planed a decade ago to force the United States to leave Afghanistan and we played a historic role to bring the Taliban to the negotiation table in an alliance with China, Russia, Iran, and Turkey.
He said that after defeating the world (NATO), the Taliban are now unstoppable and the only reality in Afghanistan.
He stated that everybody must accept that Taliban had won a war against entire world—NATO forces and they are the real people to decide future of Afghanistan along with Afghan leadership like Abdullah Abdullah etc
He believes that Abdullah Abdullah and some other politicians in Afghanistan are far important than US-imposed President Ashraf Ghani.
On Pak-Saudi relations, former DG ISI observed that the Saudis won’t have the kind of role that they had in the past in Afghanistan.
While evading a clear answer on his own role in putting together Islami Jhamoori Ittihad (IJI) against murdered former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, Lt. Gen. Durrani admitted that political engineering was done by Gen Ayub, Gen Zia and Gen Musharraf ultimately failed as their nemesis came back to power with more political power and public support. “It wasn’t a good thing,” he observed.
