Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: February 12, 2004
URL: http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/feb/13swadas.htm
Fashions change with seasons. In
the aftermath of a newly-rekindled Indo-Pakistan bonhomie it is no longer
fashionable to get all worked up over the peccadilloes of our neighbour.
Thus, it took External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha nearly a week to
come up with India's first reaction to one of the most sensational stories
of recent times -- the drama surrounding the disclosures of the nuclear
supermarket run by Abdul Qadeer Khan from Pakistan. In more normal times,
South Block mandarins would have been inundating the media will delicious
confirmations of Pakistan's status as a rogue state. Today, there is an
appearance of relative disinterest.
Since foreign policy is all about
enlightened self-interest, you could well argue that it does not suit India
at this point to add its voice to the international outrage in the West
over the brazen cover-up in Pakistan. If the US can be more than indulgent
towards President Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani military establishment
for the help in fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, we can
afford to be similarly blinkered because of the assurances provided in
Islamabad last month.
More to the point, if the US State
Department and the UN nuclear watchdog agency are busy asking all the awkward
questions and George Tenet is happy parading Khan's outing as a success
of a CIA and MI6 operation, is there any need for India to add its two-paisa
bit? The less India flaunts its obvious satisfaction at Musharraf's grave
embarrassment, the more difficult it will for Pakistan to invoke the crass
imagery that surrounds the Ghauri and Ghazni missiles.
To put it bluntly, it suits India
at this stage to let Colin Powell and Jack Straw answer all the pointed
questions about the West's double-standards. If Saddam Hussein can be punished
for thinking about Weapons of Mass Destruction, how can Pakistan be let
off the hook completely for supplying nuclear know-how to Libya, Iran and
North Korea? Last summer, at the height of the Iraq crisis, the French
writer Bernard-Henri Levy (author of Who Killed Daniel Pearl?) was mocked
for suggesting that the US had invaded the wrong country. Now, I can well
envisage a rush for membership of the club that believes that peace in
South Asian depends on immobilising Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
Actually, it is more than peace
in either South Asia or even the Islamic world that is at stake. From all
accounts, it was neither hatred of India nor Islamic pride that prompted
Khan to tell all. It was a matter of old-fashioned cash deposited discreetly
into offshore accounts. It is inconceivable that all this could have happened
without a section of the Pakistan military establishment getting a piece
of the action.
Do read: Pakistan's nuclear bazaar
Yet, the problem, as I re-discovered
last Friday during the Madhavrao Scindia memorial lecture delivered by
the British foreign secretary, is that there are too many Indians, who
are still blessed by a Cold War mindset. It is very easy to score instant
debating points by rubbishing Anglo- American unilateralism in Iraq. But
is that the issue now? Or, shouldn't the focus now be on how India can
best take advantage of the growing outrage over Pakistan?
Undeniably, the best course would
be for the US and its NATO allies to sponsor an expeditionary force across
the Khyber Pass, bomb Kahuta out of existence and ship the deviant metallurgist
to Guantanamo Bay or exile him to his luxury hotel in Timbuktu. Another
option would be to institute an internationally-sponsored Truth Commission
where Khan and his military collaborators can tell all.
'We are walking into America's trap:'
An interview with the former ISI chief
Unfortunately, the likelihood of
these suggestions being accepted is remote. It does not make sense for
either India or the vocal Diaspora lobby to press for visible punitive
action against Pakistan. As long as Afghanistan remains troubled and as
long as the West harbours ill-founded feelings of guilt over Islamist anger
about Israel, there will be no heavy-handed treatment of Pakistan. That
should not worry us unduly. It makes much more sense to work quietly with
the US and Britain in the slow process of Pakistan's nuclear emasculation.
There are reasons to believe the
process has started. Following the Khan disclosures, the US State Department
has let it be known that a US Liaison Committee has been working discreetly
in Pakistan for more than a year to 'safeguard' more than 40 weapons in
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Pressured at home, Colin Powell may follow
it up with other steps.
I doubt that we will know too many
details of this venture but it would be safe to believe that Washington
and London's non-reaction to Musharraf's whitewash of Pakistan's roguish
conduct is centred on a belief that it won't happen again. This may also
mean that it may be a while before we see another Pakistani leader using
nuclear blackmail as an instrument of conflict resolution.
The sledgehammer treatment of Saddam
was one way of dealing with a monster. In the case of Pakistan, we may
be about to witness more subtle ways of handling another criminal enterprise.
The Iraqi regime was killed off; the Pakistani problem is being handled
with psychiatry.