Ghani is doing what he's being told by his masters in Delhi.
The Afghan govt. is not a puppet state or organization like Pakistan or Taliban, respectively. Ghani represents the will of the collective majority of the free Afghan people - that is why he is their leader. I get it that all this may sound very confusing or unbelievable for you but that's perfectly understandable. When was the last time your nation actually had a leader who seeks to develop your country or solve your problems instead of how to be a nice puppet of US then & now China?
If you think Delhi puppeteers the Afghan govt. or wishes to do so, you're utterly wrong.
Everything we exports there, mainly fruits and textiles can be airlifted avoiding Afghanistan.
Afghanistan surely cannot contain Pakistan's trade routes, but it CAN make everything significantly costlier for you. Airlifting will cost phenomenally higher than land route, any day of the week. Furthermore, the stuff Pakistan actually exports isn't even worth the fuel needed to fly it where it's ordered.
The routes through Tibet/Xinjiang have an existential enemy : the weather. If you're hoping for those mountain passes & roads to remain open throughout the year, forget it.
In return we block Torkham, Chamman and all other major crossings and suffocate Afghanistan which relies heavily on trade with Pakistan. Pak traders will suffer some losses but Afghanistan will be destroyed.
As the situation deteriorates, Pakistan won't have any reason to extend the 3 million refugees asylum and kick them back to where they belong. It will safe us billions and improve our internal security.
There is just soooooooo much rhetoric among common Pakistanis claiming & threatening to choke Afghanistan by closing trade routes, throwing out refugees, etc. etc. However, so little of those kind of measures actually happen.
You know why? Because you need Afghanistan almost as much as they need you.
They are your only real economically viable trade route to CAR as of today. Over 80% of Afghans (that includes Taliban btw) are pissed at, & generally hate Pakistan. It doesn't take much to spark that flame, trust me. You even try to implement measures like forced eviction of Afghans, and the backlash will be beyond what you can handle.
And you lost like 1/10th of your Army & almost a thousand special forces operatives just mopping up after TTP and the others (cuz, you know, the majority strength of the fighters in NW Pak already relocated to that side of the Afghan border long before zarb-e-azb gained momemtum. You're fighting the remnants. Just wait for your army to rollback after the "successful operation", and brace for the counter-attack.)
Do you actually think you can just push away Afghans and not expect them to take up arms & fight? In your jingoistic attempt to antagonize the Afghans, you'll end up destroying what little stability you have remaining in your land.
The last time you attempted such stupid sh!t (with the Bengalis), India had to cut your country in half. Now you want to mess with Afghans and give them the chance to do it this time? Well, go right ahead.
Alternative routes? If he thinks Iran will let him trade freely thru Chahbahar for the sake of India he's wrong. Iranis will milk him out like no other and they are less patient with Afghanis than we are.
Pakistanis generally seem to have a very skewed & distorted image of how international relations work. They seem to consider every country to be like their inbred brother or the local fruit-seller in the bazaar, and treat them as such.
The India-Afghanistan-Iran trilateral is one of the most important transit trade agreements inked in this decade, and at it's core, it plays to the collective economic good of all three countries.
Give me one reason why Iran would try to antagonize relations with Afghanistan? Does it not want it's north-eastern borders to be stable? Does it want insurgents pouring in? Does it wish to deny trade access to Afghanistan for India and all the other countries, what would it get from that?
I see very little of you even trying to understand the geopolitics of this region, and more of you trying to superimpose your distorted beliefs/opinions on the region. Sorry for breaking it to you - but that's not gonna work.
Look at a non-Muslim, secular country like India enjoying better & healthier trade & people-to-people relations with countries like Iran & Afghanistan...especially when compared with an "Islamic Republic" like Pakistan. Look at that and atleast try to understand how little you mean to the neighbors to your West.
@abingdonboy @Indx TechStyle @PARIKRAMA @HariPrasad-1