AP Photo

Pakistan's decades-long Afghan policy has undergone a radical change. Strategically, Afghanistan is no longer considered part of Pakistan's "western defense in depth" should India attack Pakistan from the east. The country's defense doctrine also included covert assistance for the Taliban insurgency. The game changer has been a steady rapprochement between the U.S. and Pakistani defense establishments, as well as their intelligence agencies.

Taliban was originally midwifed by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. The objective was to end the civil war then raging in Afghanistan and ensure Taliban's victory. Following Taliban's Afghan victory in 1996 until the U.S. invasion Oct. 7, 2001, Pakistan...