A bad time to be a Pakistani

by Udayan Namboodiri

(December 13, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Even China had to hold back its Security Council veto on the Jamaat ud Dawa ban, vindicating India’s old claim about Pakistan being terror’s global epicentre

A week in politics, the late British Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously said, is a long time. By that yardstick two weeks, which is roughly what lapsed between the storming of the citadels of Mumbai's culture and economy and the United Nations Security Council ban on the Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD) and four of its top leadership on the list of international terrorists, is eternity. So much has happened that it is difficult to get a perspective. In fact, if there was any such thing as the physical perimeter of a dispute, it is impossible to discern it in the contest of 26/11.

All those old enough to recall the hell fire and brimstone that was generated over the Parliament attack seven Decembers back, will not fail to note the singular difference between the two atmospheres. Back then, it was an India-Pakistan bilateral affair. Now, it's the world against Pakistan. A lot of the credit for this must go to the maturity that has transformed Indian diplomacy since 2001. In 2001, whenever Pakistan snipped and India snapped, the world community cried "Hiroshima". Today, thanks to the convergence of historical developments in India's favour, she stands vindicated. Now, an assault on democratic India, nuclear bomb or no nuclear bomb, is molestation of an international best practice.

In 1983, recalled External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in his speech to Parliament this week, Indira Gandhi told Margaret Thatcher squarely "tell me when Pakistan has ever fired a single bullet in any direction other than India's". That was in the context of the West's policy of arming Pakistan in its war against Communism. The iron lady of Britain may have found her Indian counterpart's reproach bordering on paranoia. But, 25 years later, Mukherjee, who was present at that meeting, could take some satisfaction in the fact that an Indian government had at last succeeded in convincing the world body that Pakistan is a rogue state with only one mission – destroy India.

Saturday Special has been following terrorism from all possible angles since its launch four years ago. To some the UNSC resolution may be nothing but a symbolic bone thrown to India, but they overlook the psychological boost that has come New Delhi's way. Even after 26/11, Pakistan had imagined that "all this will pass" and President Zardari had started the typical gymnastics with facts that we are accustomed to. see Pakistani heads of State doing after every major terrorist strike. He first declared that neither the sole captured terrorist not his nine other associates were Pakistanis. Prime Minister Geelani said in his usual self-righteous way that the "Pakistani conscience in clean." Then, there were the usual demands for "proof" of Pakistani collusion and the parading of "experts" who performed on channel talk shows as per scripts written by ISI headquarters.

There was also some hair splitting over "state actors" and "non-state actors". But the cat was let out of the bag by the international Press which comprehensively proved that all the 10 terrorists were Pakistanis. Saleem Shahzada, a known ISI agent who doubles as bureau chief of the prestigious news site, Asia Times, in his desperation to protect the ISI, revealed that the operation was planned by the present Army chief and former ISI head, General Hamid Gul. The Washington Post picked up this story and the game was up for Pakistan. The US had an outstanding issue with this man. In August 1998, he had saved Osama bin Laden's life by warning him of an imminent missile attack.

Army Chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was seen involved in affirmative action these past two weeks. To deflect world attention from his hand in 26/11, he tried the oldest Pakistani trick – blackmail. Knowing how simple it is to raise the West's 'nuclear winter' worries, he called for withdrawing troops from Pakistan's western frontier and their redeployment along the Indian border. This was welcomed by the Taliban commander ,Baitullah Mehsud, who offered his readiness for cease fire so that the common enemy, infidel India, can be quartered. It is not difficult to see through the unfolding strategy of the Army-ISI combine to wriggle out of its reluctant partnership to fight terrorism on the western frontier and get the international focus turned to the east. Their 'U' turn was coming. In the endless revolving door of dictatorship, democracy and fundamentalism, the terror infrastructure of Pakistan has remained intact even after the $ 10 billion pumped by the US since 9/11.Until 26/11, the only legacy of the Musharraf years that democratic Pakistan sought to uphold was the hide and seek game with Washington.

But, the election of Barack Obama which coincided with the growing depth in Indo-Pak bilateralism, may have upset the Army's calculations and indeed instilled the fear of losing its preeminence in Pakistani society. Provoking India and causing a rollback to the peace process may have been thought up as a fool-proof way of regaining the ascendancy. Obama's innocent remark about finding a solution to Kashmir was played up by the Army-controlled intelligentsia of Pakistan.

The reorientation of American policy has its genesis in introspection. Americans are tired of pumping billions towards funding a regime that ultimately contributed to killing Americans. One analyst defined Obama’s ‘carrot and stick’ doctrine as carrot for the democratic government and stick for the Army-ISI. Logically, Pakistan's feel attempts to draw the linkage to Kashmir has no takers. Even China, which had blocked a similar Security Council move to ban the JuD in 2006, had to submit before international opinion. As M. Rama Rao points out (Main Article), the time had come for America to balance its concerns over responsibility to the Afghans and to its own sons and daughters. S. Rajagoplan (The Other Voice) adds that some of the concern may have its origin in the theory that the Lashkar e Tayyiba may be set to replace the al-Qaeda as the biggest threat to the US.. And since, the LeT is a Pakistani outfit fattened by the Pakistani establishment with US taxpayers' money, action was overdue.

The rage over the Mumbai terror attack should be irrigated well. An expression fast gaining popularity is “take it to the logical conclusion.”But the war option was deftly ruled out by Mukherjee. This may gladden millions of Pakistanis as an international thrust could lead to their civilian government and Army working together to dismantle the camps. The coming years should see Washington invest more into Pakistan's pathetic civilian police instead of wasting resources on an Army which is only interested in self-preservation. Pakistan itself is a big victim of the terror its government breeds for exports. Now, the focus must shift on winning the hearts of the common Pakistani. - Sri Lanka Guardian