There is a temptation to reduce Pakistan’s fraught relationship with Afghanistan to a familiar formula: terrorism, border security, and refugee management. These are the words that often populate government statements and dominate headlines. But when one looks beyond the surface, it becomes increasingly clear that this narrative, while convenient, is also incomplete. Pakistan’s problem with Afghanistan is not just about cross-border militancy or the strain of hosting refugees. It is also about identity, influence, and a deeply unsettled shift in regional dynamics—one that Islamabad’s power brokers are struggling to accept.
Afghanistan, under Taliban control, was expected to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions after the hasty American withdrawal. That collapse never came. Instead, Kabul has found a form of resilience—gritty, imperfect, but undeniably real. The economy, while battered, has not imploded. Markets continue to function. Trade routes have been recalibrated. The flow of US dollars in local markets has, paradoxically, continued even after American boots left Afghan soil. For Pakistan’s establishment—once accustomed to viewing Afghanistan as a backyard province rather than a sovereign neighbor—this has been a sobering development.
The truth is, Islamabad no longer pulls the strings in Kabul the way it once imagined it could. For years, Pakistan leveraged its role as both a gatekeeper and a conduit—offering safe passage to foreign forces, exerting influence through proxies, and shaping regional narratives in ways that served its strategic calculus. But now, it finds itself shut out of a boardroom where it used to set the agenda. That loss of influence is hard to digest. And the resulting discomfort is manifesting in policies that look increasingly erratic, even vindictive.
The refugee crisis is one such example. Pakistan has hosted Afghan refugees for over four decades. This is not new. What is new is the tone—the sudden urgency with which these refugees are being scapegoated, demonized, and driven out. It is a curious thing, this awakening of national conscience. Why now? If the burden of Afghan refugees was unsustainable, it has been so for years. Why did it suddenly become intolerable?
One explanation, perhaps, is that the presence of Afghan refugees—once tolerated as a strategic buffer—has lost its geopolitical utility. They are no longer seen as pawns in a regional chessboard but as liabilities in a game that no longer plays to Pakistan’s advantage. And so, with the cold efficiency of realpolitik, they are being ushered out—not because of any new threat they pose, but because the winds of strategic interest have changed direction.
It is easy to cloak this shift in language about security and national interest. But doing so ignores the human toll, and worse, it distracts from the deeper rot: the fact that none of these decisions were ever put to public debate. Not when the refugees first arrived. Not when they were integrated into the country’s informal economy. And certainly not now, when they are being told to leave.
The Pakistani people, once again, have been reduced to spectators. This is a democracy in name but not in practice. Policies with far-reaching implications—for the economy, for regional diplomacy, for human lives—are being made behind closed doors, by individuals with no controversial electoral mandate. These are not decisions born of public deliberation. They are the whims of an unelected elite, a class of perennial decision-makers who continue to operate with impunity, hiding behind the curtain of national security.
Take, for example, the recent diplomatic outreach to Kabul. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, now doubling as Deputy Prime Minister, flew to Afghanistan and met with senior Taliban leaders. The optics were carefully managed. Smiles for the cameras. Vague commitments to trade and border security. Statements about mutual cooperation. But no one watching was fooled. Underneath the surface, the imbalance of power was palpable. For the first time in decades, Pakistan was at the table as a supplicant, not a patron.
Dar’s language was cautious, even conciliatory. He spoke of border management, of improving trade, of shared interests. But gone was the authoritative tone that once defined Pakistan’s posture towards its western neighbor. The old confidence—the belief that Islamabad could set terms—was absent. In its place, there was something closer to anxiety. Because it is not just that Pakistan has lost influence. It is that it cannot seem to admit that it has.
And this is where the problem truly lies. Not in the refugees, nor even in the threat of terrorism, real though it is. The deeper issue is psychological. Pakistan’s foreign policy has long been predicated on the assumption that it is a central actor in the region, indispensable to any solution. But the post-American Afghanistan has revealed a new reality—one where Pakistan is just another neighbor, not the puppet master it once imagined itself to be.
To adjust to this new reality will require more than diplomatic handshakes. It will require a reckoning—one that begins at home. Pakistan must confront its addiction to unelected governance, its fear of transparency, and its unwillingness to trust its own citizens with the right to decide. If policies are made only to serve the insecurities of a cloistered elite, then no amount of outreach, no matter how polished, will yield results.
Afghanistan is no longer Pakistan’s to manage. It is a country with its own trajectory, its own calculations, and, yes, its own problems. But it is no longer a blank slate for Pakistan’s ambitions. And that is something the Pakistani establishment must learn to accept—grudgingly, perhaps, but inevitably.
Until then, the cycle will continue: demonising refugees, lamenting lost influence, and invoking security threats to mask political failure. But the world is watching. And increasingly, it is no longer buying the old script.
The question is, will Pakistan keep performing it? Or will it finally, belatedly, begin to write a new one?
