AHC: Pakistan finds somebody, anybody it prefers to work with in Afghanistan besides the Taliban

[raharris1973]

That's the challenge - Have the Pakistani deep state, military and ISI, end up preferring to work with somebody in Afghanistan instead of the Taliban. In OTL, they always found the alternatives: monarchy, the reds, the northern alliance, Karzai, Ghani - unacceptable. They were fairly OK with Hekmatyar, but when the Taliban came along, they preferred them. What factors over the last 30 years or so could have aligned Pakistan's own perceived interests with a non-Taliban faction?

 

[gral]

That's the challenge - Have the Pakistani deep state, military and ISI, end up preferring to work with somebody in Afghanistan instead of the Taliban. In OTL, they always found the alternatives: monarchy, the reds, the northern alliance, Karzai, Ghani - unacceptable. They were fairly OK with Hekmatyar, but when the Taliban came along, they preferred them. What factors over the last 30 years or so could have aligned Pakistan's own perceived interests with a non-Taliban faction?

Wasn't part of the reason the fact that the Taliban were a Pashtun group, and therefore they could kill two birds with one stone, having ties to Pashtuns both on Afghanistan and on Pakistan?

 

[raharris1973]

Wasn't part of the reason the fact that the Taliban were a Pashtun group, and therefore they could kill two birds with one stone, having ties to Pashtuns both on Afghanistan and on Pakistan?

Yes, but they weren't the only Pashtun politicos. The monarchs had been Pashtuns. The leaders of the Reds had been Pashtuns. Hekmatyar's and Mujhadeen group were Pashtun, and so were Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani. Pakistan had crap relations with almost all of them, and found the Taliban the most tolerable. The Taliban unfortunately got along with Al-Qaeda the best of all of them.

 

[PsihoKekec]

Pakistan wanted a faction that was pliable and had a chance at winning the war in Afghanistan, Hekmatyar was pliable in a backstabbing way, but blew his chance at winning.
Perhaps ISI manages to convince Haqqani to take more active role once the fighting amongst mujahedeen commanders starts, funnelling men, money and material, they used in creation of Taliban, to him instead.