Time for some quick thinking

By Ashok K Mehta

(October 14, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Just as India-Pakistan relations appeared to be on the mend, suicide terrorism struck a second time in 15 months at the Indian Embassy in Kabul. While the attack was claimed by the Taliban, Afghan authorities said the strike was from across the border with the Afghan Ambassador to the US, Mr Said Jawad, naming the ISI. Pakistan expectedly condemned the attack. Routinely, India merely hinted at Pakistan’s involvement, all part of a familiar story. The Pakistani Taliban has inflicted mayhem in North-West Frontier Province, unleashing four suicide attacks in the last one week as reprisals for the killing of Baitullah Mehsud. The weekend attack on GHQ Rawalpindi was the most daring, demonstrating the ease with which terrorists could penetrate the sanctum sanctorum and create a hostage situation. Pakistani commandos captured Aqueel, alias Dr Usman, the equivalent of Mumbai’s Kasab whose initial interrogation has revealed the close link between Pashtun Taliban and Punjabi jihadis.

With the mask of good and bad jihadis off, ISI’s Lt Gen Shuja Pasha will have to locate a new and bona fide strategic asset. Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Peterson has been warning that “you cannot tolerate a viper in your bosom without getting bitten”. Fears that this viper could infiltrate Pakistan’s nuclear complex and steal bombs or nuclear material have been rekindled in Washington, DC, though US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has discounted these threats. The new leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, has been threatening retaliation against the Pakistani Army if it launched its planned offensive in South Waziristan. He said the Taliban had nothing against the Army but the US occupation forces in Afghanistan at whose behest military operations against his outfit are planned.

A confused situation after a 22-hour commando operation led the embarrassed Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik to accuse India of exporting terror to Balochistan. Not losing his cool, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh responded to the charge by saying India had no role in promoting terrorist activity. “The people of Pakistan and the Government jolly well know it”. Former Pakistani Ambassador to India Humayun Khan said it was not proper for Pakistan to raise the Balochistan issue especially after Mr Singh at Sharm-el-Sheikh had generously agreed to discuss it. According to Pakistan’s former Ambassador to Afghanistan Rustam Shah Mohmand, who was in New Delhi at the time of the Kabul and Rawalpindi attacks, elements in the Afghan Taliban alienated from Pakistan could have masterminded the bombing to exacerbate relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan and between India and Pakistan. He added that such attacks would only reinforce India’s resolve to hold its ground rather than be intimidated. Gen Stanley McChrystal’s strategy paper on Afghanistan suggests that India’s presence and increasing influence are likely to fuel regional tensions and attract Pakistani counter-measures. This view is peppered by the Pakistani consultant to the US military in Afghanistan, Mr Ahmed Rasheed, who says that Pakistani support for the Afghan Taliban is for countering Indian influence and having an alternate force in the event US forces leave Afghanistan.

Afghans are impressed with the constructive role played by India in their country in its socio-economic development as part of the $ 15 billion assistance package. It seems the Obama Administration has told New Delhi that it did not see Indian assistance in Afghanistan as a source of regional tension. This is one more point of conflict between the US civilian and military strategies. Isn’t it time that India and Afghanistan told the Americans that Pakistan cannot define the quality of relations between them?

Pakistani analysts believe that the US is coming around to appreciating Pakistan’s security outlook and that it has to convince India to scale down its interest in Afghanistan. Both India and Pakistan believe that the US backs its policy in Afghanistan though there is a clear difference between the civilian and military establishments in the US over India’s role in Pakistan’s backyard. India is doing some quick thinking beyond its purely soft-power imprint in Afghanistan towards a more subtle role in political and security activities. Hints of this were found last week in Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao’s concluding remarks at an international conference on Afghanistan. New Delhi must be prepared to meet any challenge posed by Pakistan’s proxies in Afghanistan.

The India-Pakistan battleground has visibly shifted to Afghanistan with Pakistan accusing Indian consulates of exporting terror to NWFP and Balochistan. Pakistan has reciprocated India’s two-decade-old charge of cross-border terrorism in the same coin. Improved relations between New Delhi and Islamabad are key to peace and stability in Afghanistan and the region and for enabling Pakistan to fight with full vigour its war against terrorism.

The well-being of Afghanistan is more rooted outside than inside the country. Clubbing Pakistan with Afghanistan (AfPak) reflects the complexity of the situation. The US has managed to compel and cajole Pakistan to fight the Taliban, admittedly selectively. India has to register the frequent stabs of suicide terrorism in Rawalpindi and Lahore, close to its border. While a jihadi attack on India has providentially not happened since Mumbai, a fresh terrorism strike will make it unimaginably difficult for New Delhi not to respond militarily. Pakistan’s courts have set free Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

The Kabul attack has deepened distrust and taken bilateral relations into a hole. It is most unlikely that the composite dialogue will be resumed anytime soon. The US Kerry-Lugar Bill of economic and military assistance to Islamabad makes clear that civil-military relations are still suspect and uneasy. The conditionality in the Bill of more effective civilian control over the Pakistani Army has raised the hackles of the military. Is there a way by which the US can calibrate its long-standing military-to military ties with Pakistan to ease the ISI out of its shadowy games?

Bilateralism between India and Pakistan has failed to work given the operational autonomy enjoyed by the military and intelligence establishments. Non-engagement with Pakistan is not an option either. However unpalatable, it is time to bring in the US which for once has good relations with both India and Pakistan. The Chinese have made an offer to help in the resolution of the Kashmir issue. Former President Bill Clinton said last week that improvement of relations with Pakistan is key to India overtaking China. New Delhi should tell Islamabad it is ready to discuss Kashmir, Balochistan, Afghanistan and terrorism. Washington, DC, which has for long wanted to be a facilitator, can be brought in to justify Mr Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize.

-Sri Lanka Guardian