It's time to call Pakistan's bluff

by G Parthasarathy

(December 25, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) In the five years I lived in Pakistan, a constant feature was the ever-present ISI minders who followed me wherever I went. Their surveillance was crude. On one occasion they seated themselves next to a table at which I was hosting Ms Maleeha Lodhi (later Pakistan's Ambassador to the US) at the height of the Kargil conflict. Nervous and rattled by the proximity of the ISI goons, Ms Lodhi even declined to accept from me a copy of the infamous Musharraf-Aziz conversation that had been taped by the R&AW during the Kargil conflict.

It was, therefore, not difficult to spot the ISI goons swarming over the village of Faridkot to intimidate ordinary citizens and erase all evidence that the captured terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab and his parents had lived there. In urban centres ranging from Sialkot and Multan to Dera Ismail Khan, the ISI has sought to erase evidence of the other terrorists being Pakistani nationals. Thus, despite professions of readiness to cooperate, Pakistan is erasing evidence of its involvement in the carnage.


The Manmohan Singh Government has erred yet again by stating there is no evidence of ISI involvement in the Mumbai carnage. During a recent meeting in Washington, the former Commander-in-Chief of India's Eastern Fleet, Vice-Admiral Premvir Das, explained the immense complexity of the operations undertaken by the hijackers who boarded a Pakistani ship in Karachi, hijacked an Indian fishing trawler, navigated it by using global positioning system, and transferred weapons, ammunition, explosives and an outboard motor to a small boat in turbulent water.

Admiral Das averred, "It is just not possible for ordinary jihadis, trained in camps in Muridke, to do this. Only people with rigorous military training could have done what these people did." In short, the entire commando style operation had the backing of elements in Pakistan's Army and Navy. It is, therefore, inexplicable why the Manmohan Singh Government does not publicly speak of circumstantial evidence of ISI/Pakistani military involvement.

New Delhi's pusillanimity on this score has led to foreign leaders like Senator John Kerry giving the Pakistan military establishment a clean chit on the Mumbai carnage. While there is sympathy in Western capitals for India after the Mumbai attack, Western chanceries now appear to believe that India is acting like a supplicant in pleading for them to act against Pakistan.

Given the Western and particularly American reliance on Pakistan for logistical support in the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the Americans now believe that expressions of sympathy and understanding alone will deter India from taking any action that adversely affects their operations in Afghanistan. Sensing this, Islamabad regularly threatens them that it will move its troops to Pakistan's border with India unless they 'restrain' New Delhi. Is it not, therefore, time for India to tell its friends that they should reduce their dependence on Pakistan and that they should hold out the threat of economic and military sanctions if the latter continues to stonewall on dismantling the infrastructure of ISI-sponsored terrorism?

Since the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008, NATO officials have been working on alternative supply routes for their forces in Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan as "the situation is unstable there". During the NATO summit, Russia agreed to facilitate a land transport corridor to Afghanistan. Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have been approached for the same purpose and Azerbaijan and Georgia have been sounded out for a Caucasian corridor to Afghanistan through Turkmenistan, via the Caspian Sea.

Such moves will reduce Western dependence on Pakistan and undermine Islamabad's efforts to blackmail its American allies. The recent attacks on NATO supply convoys near Peshawar appear to be calculated efforts by Islamabad to force the US to plead for more Pakistani military support. India should now let it be known that it feels the US should not be deterred from imposing sanctions on Pakistan if it persists in its refusal to act against terrorism emanating from its soil. The US should also actively reduce its dependence on Pakistan for its operations in Afghanistan. Indian security will, after all, not be as seriously affected as American security interests if Pakistan chooses to move elements of its four divisions, now deployed on its western border, to its border with India.

If Pakistan continues to blackmail the US with threats of pulling out troops from its western border to its eastern border, India can justifiably assert that Pakistan's threats will not deter it from acting to protect its interests if the US and others do not go beyond paying mere lip service to Indian forbearance. Some may warn that this will lead to growing Talibanisation of Pakistan.

But would a spread of Taliban control towards Islamabad also not lead to the weakening of the Pakistan Army, which is, after all, the lead player in sponsoring terrorism against both Afghanistan and India? Further, would the Pakistani Army really create a situation that would lead to NATO airstrikes deeper into Pakistan? In the present power structure of Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari and his Government play second fiddle to the Army establishment. This will not change unless the Pakistani Army is isolated and forced to make hard choices and give up its favorite pastime of 'bleeding' India.

New Delhi must adopt and articulate these options before the Obama Administration assumes office. President-elect Barack Obama has endorsed India's right to "self-defence". The incoming Administration is also more open to ideas, like widening the dialogue on Afghanistan by bringing in not only the country's Central Asian neighbours but also Russia, Iran and India. China, which bears responsibility for the Mumbai carnage by blocking moves in the UN Security Council to get the Jamaat-ud-Dawah declared a terrorist organisation will continue to stand by its 'all-weather friend' Pakistan.

But once the US and its NATO allies decide to call Pakistan's bluff, work on alternative supply routes to Afghanistan and threaten Pakistan with sanctions if it does not dismantle the infrastructure of ISI-sponsored terrorism, Pakistan and China will have to accede to the demands of the international community. The leverage that India has to make the US and its NATO allies act on these lines lies in its ability to compel the Pakistani Army to move four Divisions from its western to its eastern border, should it feel compelled to do so. - Sri Lanka Guardian