Author: G Parthasarathy
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 12, 2009
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/215190/India-just-can't-read-Pakistan.html
Developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan will figure prominently when Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh visits the Obama White House on November 24. The Obama
Administration has handled events related to the recent re-election of Mr
Hamid Karzai as President of Afghanistan in a crude and insensitive manner.
By publicly humiliating Mr Karzai, Washington has only weakened a leader set
to play a crucial role in emerging developments in Afghanistan. Moreover,
the prolonged period that the Obama Administration has taken to review its
policies on Afghanistan has given an impression of dithering and uncertainty
on the most crucial foreign policy challenge that Washington faces today.
This has only confused countries like India which have sought to complement
Washington's efforts to strengthen Afghanistan internally. These developments
are also encouraging the Taliban and Al Qaeda to believe that they will succeed
in efforts to promote terrorism globally.
Vice President Joseph Biden reportedly advocates
action against Taliban and Al Qaeda hideouts in Pakistan, and even as Mr Obama
pondered over what to do next in Afghanistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
paid a well-planned visit to Pakistan intended to reassure the Pakistanis
of American commitment to their welfare, stability and prosperity. The visit
came at a time when the Pakistani Army establishment led by Gen Ashfaq Parvez
Kayani had joined forces with the Opposition Muslim League led by former Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif to undermine President Asif Ali Zardari by voicing serious
reservations and calling for the rejection of the Kerry-Lugar Act, which pledges
$ 7.5 billion in assistance to Pakistan. The aid comes at a time when Pakistan's
own revenues cannot even meet the cost of the Government's administrative
expenditure with Pakistan's economic growth having plummeted to two per cent
in 2008-2009.
The longest meeting that Ms Clinton had in
Islamabad was not with President Zardari or Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani,
but with Gen Kayani together with ISI Chief Lt Gen Shuja Pasha, with whom
she spent three hours. After the meeting with the Army brass and irked by
orchestrated criticism of US policies while in Lahore, which echoed what she
heard in Islamabad, Ms Clinton publicly voiced her misgivings about continuing
support by Pakistan's military establishment for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
On October 29 she said: "Al Qaeda has had a safe haven in Pakistan since
2002. I find it difficult to believe that nobody in your Government knows
where they are, and couldn't get them, if they really wanted to". Cautioning
Pakistan on cross-border terrorism it promotes in neighbouring India and Afghanistan
Ms Clinton asserted: "If we are going to have a mature partnership where
we work together, there are issues that not just the United States, but others
have with your Government and your military security establishment".
Pakistan's military and its political allies
do not appear to have been affected by Ms Clinton's public admonition. While
the military continues its operations against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan
in South Waziristan, primarily because the TTP has challenged the Army's,
the ISI continues to back Taliban military commanders led by Sirajuddin Haqqani
in neighbouring North Waziristan who have relentlessly staged terrorist attacks
in Afghanistan, including on the Indian Embassy in Kabul and on Indian workers
throughout Afghanistan. Moreover, the Taliban political leadership led by
Mullah Omar, popularly known as the 'Quetta Shura', remains comfortably ensconced
in Quetta. While reviewing policies on Afghanistan, the Obama Administration
will sooner or later have to decide on whether it can realistically contain
the Taliban or its Al Qaeda allies in Afghanistan without exercising the 'Biden
Option' of striking at their bases in Pakistan across the Durand Line.
Recent revelations by the FBI of the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba
links of two Chicago residents of Pakistani origin, who were plotting terrorist
strikes against targets in Denmark and India, clearly establish that Pakistan-based
terrorist organisations like the LeT now have a worldwide reach and, like
the Al Qaeda, a worldwide agenda of terrorism. The terrorist attacks planned
against India were intended to be a continuation of the earlier terrorist
strikes on Mumbai and elsewhere. The prime accused, Daood Gilani aka David
Headley, was in touch with Ilyas Kashmiri, a former Pakistan Army commando
of Pakistan's elite Special Services Group. Kashmiri was used by the ISI in
the 1980s for training the Afghan mujahideen and in the 1990s for terrorism
in Jammu & Kashmir. He escaped after being captured by Indian forces in
Poonch in 1994. Interestingly, while Kashmiri was later charged with an attempt
to assassinate Gen Pervez Musharraf and for the assassination of a former
commander of the SSG, Maj Gen Faisal Alvi in 2008, he was allowed to get away
and seek refuge in North Waziristan alongside Afghan Taliban military commander
Sirajuddin Haqqani, who Gen Kayani reportedly regards as a 'strategic asset'
of the ISI.
The LeT was reportedly planning to attack
elite schools in north India, reminiscent of the attack by Chechen terrorists
in Beslan, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of school children. Chechen
terrorists have long-standing links with the Taliban, Al Qaeda, the LeT and
with political parties in Pakistan like the Jamat-e-Islami. Home Minister
P Chidambaram and the Indian Army chief have warned that future terrorist
attacks will not go unpunished. Interestingly, the establishment's reaction
in Pakistan to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speech in Kashmir was voiced
by former Senator and Muslim League politician, Mr Mushahid Hussain, who has
long-standing links with the Pakistani Army and the LeT. Mr Hussain asserted
that Mr Singh's recent readiness for unconditional dialogue was because of
growing fears in India about Maoist violence, insinuating that the offer for
talks was because of India's internal compulsions.
India has continuously misread the internal
dynamics of Pakistan. Even in late 2007, our High Commission in Islamabad
and luminaries in South Block believed that Gen Musharraf remained strong
and virtually invincible. Right now there seems to be little appreciation
of the fact that it is Gen Kayani and not President Zardari who determines
and dictates policy in Islamabad. Anyone who knows Gen Kayani's approach to
relations with India, even from the days he commanded the 12th Infantry Division
in Murree, knows that he is pathologically anti-Indian and regards the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba
and the Afghan Taliban as 'strategic assets'. Mr Singh needs to convey these
realities to Washington while responding to any calls for a revival of the
composite dialogue process.