Karachi : Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has made one of his strongest admissions yet, accusing the US of exploiting Islamabad for its strategic interests. Asif said Pakistan’s decision to once again align with Washington after 1999, particularly in relation to Afghanistan, inflicted lasting damage on the country.
He described the pursuit of US backing as a grave miscalculation whose consequences Pakistan continues to bear decades later. Challenging decades of official narrative, Asif rejected the claim that Pakistan’s involvement in the Afghanistan conflict was driven by religious duty. He acknowledged that Pakistanis were mobilised and sent to fight under the banner of jihad, calling the framing both misleading and destructive.
He argued that the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan during the 1980s was dictated by American geopolitical interests rather than any genuine religious imperative, insisting that the circumstances never warranted a declaration of jihad. According to the defence minister, Pakistan’s participation in conflicts that were not its own produced long-term instability and social damage that has yet to be fully undone.
Asif said the costs of realigning with the US after 1999, particularly following the September 11, 2001 attacks, were devastating. He accused late military rulers Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf of entangling Pakistan in external wars, leaving the country to absorb the fallout long after its allies moved on. Asif told lawmakers that Pakistan was treated “worse than toilet paper”, used for a purpose and then thrown away.
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