The Afghanistan issue was not in the hands of Pashtuns in the army. That is why Hikmatyar was not given government by Rabbani who had support from Pakistan.
Let the facts be clear. No Guderian ka baccha from Punjab or Sind came up with the idea that we need a Pakhtun-centric dispensation in Afghanistan.
All of this was pushed by our own well placed Pakhtun hands starting with President Ayub's rule and eventually in the 80s through the workings of the Afghan-desk (in the ISI/Military and Government). GIK, Naseerullah Babar, Hamid Gul, Assad Durrani (I have utmost respect for the latter two - good conscientious officers!) and countless others in the FO and ISI directorates were staffed by cadres hailing from the regions close to Afghanistan. All of these personalities had a significant impact on what Pakistan set out to achieve in Afghanistan and the goal was to ensure Afghanistan had a "Pakhtun-led" dispensation, which was assumed to be more favorable to Pakistan. This is what led to the entire infrastructure being set up in NWFP/FATA to sustain these operations, and the Pakhtun belt providing a constant supply of recruits through indoctrination in hundreds of madrassas across the Pakhtun belt, and the rest is history.
In general, nobody from our down south would have even understood the internal dynamics of Afghanistan better than these hands. Unfortunately, the calls that were made turned Taliban into the Frankenstein of today.
These are the undisputed facts that are seldom discussed. The easy thing to do is to point finger at the Army and fire away, the same way, without any real dissection, blame is only put on the Army for the East Pakistan debacle. There too, the entire West Pakistani elite (civilian politicians including ZAB and countless others from Sind, Punjab and NWFP) in the run-up from the election in 1970 to the actual civil war, pleaded with the military to ensure that the future of Pakistan must not be left in the hands of Mujeeb and those in the East. Honest to God, this was the demand of the West Pakistanis (now they all play the mea culpa card - we are so sorry that our army did this/that to our brethren in the East).
If you want to introspect, do it with honesty and not half-truths that many here spouting their holier than thou attitudes do.
