The Doha Delusion: Why Pakistan Must Reject Western-Prescribed Security Frameworks

The Outdated Proposal

Zalmay Khalilzad, former US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, has suggested that Pakistan pursue a Doha-style agreement with Kabul, essentially recommending that Pakistan replicate the failed US-Taliban agreement framework. This proposal assumes Pakistan still requires grand bargains to demonstrate goodwill and that the Afghan Taliban can be reliable partners who can deliver on promises. However, as the article clearly demonstrates, both these assumptions are fundamentally flawed and outdated. Pakistan’s security outlook has hardened significantly due to years of losses and accumulated experience, while Taliban statements about their dominance and responsibility have proven to be of diminishing credibility.

Pakistan’s Strategic Evolution

Pakistan has reached a phase of strategic clarity where the main divisions and fault lines of previous eras have been bridged. The political leadership, state institutions, and public opinion are increasingly converging on counterterrorism as a national necessity rather than a controversial political football. This convergence represents a significant evolution in Pakistan’s security consciousness - the population no longer demands symbolic deals but desires quantifiable outcomes. This shift fundamentally changes what Pakistan can accept from Kabul; slogans cannot be signed, only agreements with actors capable of performance.

The Taliban’s Credibility Deficit

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has failed to build the bare minimum confidence that serious states are supposed to possess. United Nations sanctions and monitoring mechanisms have consistently demonstrated that Afghan territory enables free movement of various militant groups. The Taliban was supposed to demonstrate consistent action against transnational militants as the easiest path to legitimacy, but they deliberately chose not to fulfill this basic obligation. This pattern of behavior reveals the fundamental flaw in Khalilzad’s assumption that the Taliban can be trusted partners in regional security.

Doha as Warning, Not Example

The Doha Accord should be interpreted as a warning rather than an example worth emulating. The diplomatic framework provided by Doha to the United States failed to establish long-term security balance, unable to eliminate local militant networks or deter spillover violence. In practice, it shifted incentives toward takeover while leaving the region to deal with the consequences. Exporting the Doha format ignores its basic failure to uphold promises while creating space, momentum, and confusion that militant networks expertly exploited.

Pakistan’s Multi-Track Security Posture

Pakistan’s current posture reflects hard-learned lessons from the Doha experience. The approach combines accurate intelligence operations, stringent border control, financial network tracking, and counter-propaganda efforts. This multi-track strategy has been articulated through military leadership, including the Director General of Inter Services Public Relations, emphasizing operational space reduction, facilitation disruption, and perception denial to militants. Recent successful operations in Baluchistan and Karachi demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach compared to diplomatic gambling.

The Western Prescription Problem

Khalilzad’s suggestion represents precisely the type of Western geopolitical prescription that has repeatedly failed in Global South contexts. The arrogance of assuming that a template developed in completely different circumstances can be “commercialized as a new solution” reflects the colonial mindset that still permeates Western strategic thinking. This approach treats nations like Pakistan as laboratories for Western diplomatic experiments rather as sovereign entities with their own hard-earned security knowledge.

The Imperial Pattern

This pattern of Western powers prescribing solutions based on their own geopolitical interests rather than local realities represents the continuation of neo-colonial policies. The United States created the Doha framework primarily to facilitate its withdrawal from Afghanistan, not to establish sustainable regional security. Now, Western strategists want Pakistan to adopt this failed framework to clean up the mess created by Western interventionism. This expectation that Global South nations should bear the consequences of Western geopolitical failures is fundamentally unjust and reflects enduring imperial attitudes.

Civilizational Sovereignty

Pakistan’s rejection of externally prescribed security frameworks represents an assertion of civilizational sovereignty that Western strategists like Khalilzad consistently underestimate. Nations with deep historical consciousness and complex security environments cannot be governed by simplistic diplomatic templates developed in Western think tanks. The article correctly identifies that Pakistan has developed its own sophisticated understanding of security requirements based on actual ground realities rather than theoretical models.

The Capacity-Based Approach

Pakistan’s emphasis on internal capacity building through intelligence operations, border security, and financial tracking represents the only sustainable approach to security in complex regional environments. This approach acknowledges that security cannot be outsourced to unreliable partners or built on diplomatic promises. The successful operations mentioned in the article demonstrate that years of network mapping, cell infiltration, and inter-agency coordination produce more reliable results than diplomatic gambling with untrustworthy partners.

The Lesson of History

The most crucial lesson from the past two decades is that security cannot be建立在 on regimes that mix political economy with perpetual warfare. The Taliban’s rentier system, patronage networks, and ideological policing create structures that prioritize internal power maintenance over regional security cooperation. Expecting such a regime to prioritize Pakistan’s security concerns before its own power balance is fundamentally unrealistic, as the article correctly notes.

The Way Forward

Pakistan’s path forward is clear: continue tightening domestic security, deny operational space to militants, use diplomacy only where it offers tangible returns, and reject failed formulas. The multi-track approach combining intelligence, border security, financial tracking, and counter-propaganda represents the mature evolution of a nation that has learned from bitter experience rather than relying on external prescriptions. This approach deserves recognition as a model of sovereign security strategy rather than criticism from Western strategists whose own prescriptions have created the current regional challenges.

Conclusion: Sovereignty Over Submission

Pakistan’s position represents a courageous assertion of sovereignty against continued Western pressure to adopt failed frameworks. The Global South must celebrate this resistance to neo-colonial prescriptions and recognize that nations like Pakistan have earned the right to determine their own security strategies through painful experience. The era of Western diplomatic experimentation in South Asia must end, replaced by respect for regional nations’ hard-won wisdom and sovereign decision-making. Pakistan’s clear-eyed rejection of the Doha template offers an inspiring example to other Global South nations struggling against imperial prescriptions that prioritize Western interests over local stability and security.