“A week is a long time in politics” is a famous quote by the former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson. However, in international geopolitics, a week could also feel like an eternity. And a few years could feel like an eon.
It is said that “Hindsight is 20/20,” meaning that in retrospect, everyone is wise. Just four years ago, what was cited as a great geopolitical victory for Pakistan is now seen as a disaster.
Ironically enough, as if to bring out the contrast in full detail, Pakistan’s journey from ‘success’ to ‘defeat’ has come to be represented by a single image and a single idiom of a humble ‘cup of tea’.
It’s rare for a single image of a person sipping tea to become the symbol of a country’s geopolitical achievements.
However, in the case of Pakistan, this happened not once but twice: first in 2019 and then two years later in 2021.
On both occasions, the cup of tea became a symbol of Pakistan’s self-proclaimed strength, achievements, geopolitical victory, and bright future.
Indeed, the ‘tea is fantastic’ became a national rage in Pakistan. Memes were made on it. The phrase was used to taunt India.
Such was the phrase’s popularity that Pakistani tea companies used it as a tagline in their marketing campaigns, trying to cash in on nationalist sentiment.
On social media, the ‘tea is fantastic’ became the ultimate comeback line of Pakistani Twitter warriors.
However, it now seems Pakistan celebrated too soon. For what was cited as Islamabad’s once-in-a-century opportunity is now termed a strategic mistake, and the cause of Pakistan’s all woes in the present.
2019: The Birth Of ‘Tea Is Fantastic’
On February 14, 2019, a suicide bombing in the Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir, India, led to the death of 40 CRPF soldiers. This was one of the deadliest terror attacks in J&K in years.
The Pakistan-based terror group, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), claimed responsibility for the attack shortly after.
Twelve days later, on February 26, 2019, the Indian Air Force (IAF) conducted “Operation Balakot,” striking a JeM training camp in Balakot, Pakistan.
India claimed that over 200 terrorists were killed in the operation. Pakistan denied India’s claims.
However, the strikes were a big embarrassment for Pakistan as IAF fighter jets were able to penetrate hundreds of kilometers inside Pakistan, conduct an operation, and return safely to India.
The fact that the IAF conducted the operation while the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) was on high alert raised uncomfortable questions about the PAF’s readiness.
One day later, on 27 February, Pakistan Air Force jets crossed the Line of Control (LoC). In the ensuing dogfights, an Indian MiG-21 Bison was shot down, and its pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, was captured inside Pakistani territory.
India claimed that Varthaman shot down a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet before his own jet was shot down. Pakistan, however, rejected India’s claims.
Varthaman was released two days later; however, the episode was encapsulated by a video of Varthaman in Pakistan’s custody.
Varthman answered the questions posed by Pakistani Army officers with dignity and fearlessness, while sipping tea.
When asked if he was enjoying the tea, Varthman responded, “The tea is fantastic.”
This statement became a viral meme and was used in subsequent social media content and even mock advertisements, sometimes humorously with patriotic undertones.
Islamabad’s underlying message was simple: PAF scored a great strategic and operational victory over the IAF in February 2019, downing the IAF’s MiG-21 fighter jet and capturing its pilot alive.
2021: Islamabad’s ‘Cup Of Tea’ In Kabul
In September 2021, just days after the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, Pakistan’s intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, flew to Kabul ahead of the Taliban announcing its government formation.
“While in Kabul, he is meeting and working with the Pakistani ambassador and his team on issues of repatriation and transit through Pakistan and the situation on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. He will also be meeting Taliban representatives to discuss these issues,” the ISI said in a press release at that time.
Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed’s visit to Kabul was widely interpreted as symbolizing Islamabad’s influence over the Taliban.
For many analysts, the Taliban’s victory in Kabul symbolized Islamabad’s victory. Pakistan had for decades tried to convert Afghanistan into its ‘strategic depth’ in its fight against India.
Pakistan aimed to use Afghanistan as a fallback territory or operational space in case of a military conflict with India, particularly to protect its military assets and leadership from India’s larger conventional forces.
At the same time, this strategy aimed to mitigate Pakistan’s geographic vulnerability — its lack of territorial depth due to its narrow, elongated shape — and to counter India’s numerical and military superiority by creating a buffer zone in Afghanistan.
During the Taliban’s earlier rule in Afghanistan (1996-2001), the Taliban had provided tactical support to Pakistan-based terror groups, most famously during the hijacking of the Air India plane IC-814 in 1999.
Pakistan was upbeat that with the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Islamabad will be able to use Kabul against New Delhi once again.
Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed’s visit to Kabul also came to be symbolized by a single image: Hameed drinking tea at the luxury Serena Hotel in central Kabul.
Assuring the journalists present, Hammed said confidently, “Everything will be fine.”
Those words have now come to haunt Pakistan.
How Pakistan’s Sweet Tea Turned Sour
Earlier this week, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar blamed former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt Gen. (retd) Hameed and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government for the country’s worsening security crisis and the ongoing conflict with Afghanistan.
Without taking names, Dar made a pointed reference to Hameed’s 2021 visit to Kabul.
“Pakistan has done so much outreach that when we go there, we say that we are here for a cup of tea… May Allah ease everyone’s difficulties, but that cup of tea cost us the most,” Dar said.
“That cup of tea reopened the entire borders… The 35,000-40,000 Taliban who had fled from here came back… And the government of that time released the most hardened criminals who had burnt the flags of Pakistan in Swat, who had martyred many people,” he added.
Dar’s comments underline the thinking in the current Pakistan government that the strategic outreach to the Taliban was a mistake and is responsible for the revival of terrorism in Pakistan.
Though Dar has only mentioned Hameed’s 2021 visit to Kabul, the statement is an implicit criticism of Pakistan’s decades-old strategy of using the Taliban to convert Afghanistan into its strategic depth and use it against India.
Pakistan’s strategic outreach to the Taliban did not start in 2021. Islamabad supported and aided the Taliban in its struggle against the Soviet forces and then in its fight against the US from 2001 to 2021.
Hence, the jubilation over the Taliban’s return to Kabul and Hameed’s now-infamous remark, “Everything will be fine.”
In fact, the Taliban and Pakistan are currently engaged in a bloody border war.
Pakistan’s cup of tea has gone from fantastic to sour within four years.
Furthermore, notwithstanding the Pakistan Army’s superior conventional force, Islamabad will struggle against the Taliban, for the Taliban is a force like no other. The Taliban is a loosely structured force that lacks a clear-cut hierarchy and a unified chain of command.
Thus, it is challenging to negotiate with the Taliban and ensure that the decisions reached by the Taliban leadership will be implemented on the ground by its foot soldiers.
Furthermore, the Taliban has historically relied on guerrilla warfare and suicide bombings in its fight against first the Russians and then the Americans.
Faced with superior conventional Pakistani military strength, there is no reason to doubt that the Taliban will once again resort to such tactics.
Professional armies all over the world struggle to fight against loosely structured militia forces that rely on guerrilla warfare; case in point, the Taliban victory against the Soviets, and then the Americans, the LTTE advantage over the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka in the 1980s, and even the recent struggle of the US forces in their battle against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Pakistan realises the gravity of its Taliban challenge; however, it is too late to rectify the mistakes Pakistan has committed over the last four decades.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
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- He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
