The hasty acquisition of fighter aircraft from China seems to be Pakistan’s only consolation at present. Otherwise, it appears to be very much on the losing side where diplomacy is concerned.
Not only has the UN ruled out the possibility of any intervention in Kashmir, it, too, has joined the US in asking Islamabad to act against the terrorists operating from Pakistan. The US has been even more forthright. In addition to President George W. Bush letting it be known that Pakistan cannot continue to use terror as a policy measure, Secretary of State Colin Powell has virtually endorsed India’s position that Pervez Musharraf cannot continue to take shelter behind comforting promises but has to show through action that he is serious about curbing terrorism.
There is little doubt that L.K. Advani’s visit to Washington has helped to dispel some of the mists which had earlier clouded Washington’s perception of what Pakistan was up to. Mr Advani’s plain speaking clearly has had an effect. Before his visit, there was an impression, mainly in the western media, that now that General Musharraf had shaken hands with Mr Vajpayee (and might have embraced him if the table had not been in the way, as the Pakistani president said), all that remains to be done is for India to withdraw its troops from the border and begin a dialogue with Islamabad. Mr Advani, however, appears to have succeeded in convincing those he met that such naivete fails to take into account the duplicitous nature of the game that Pakistan has been playing.
It has long been a part of Pakistan’s
strategy to extend one hand as a gesture of friendship while feeding the
terrorists with the other. The very nature of the proxy war is based on
this ploy of pretending to offer only ‘moral’ and ‘diplomatic’ support
to the subversives in Kashmir while providing arms and training to the
terrorists and assorted mercenaries in Pakistan. Even though Pakistan has
now been forced against its will to take steps against a few terrorist
outfits, even these measures have been described as a sham by a British
newspaper. Nor is this surprising considering that the use of terror has
been a part of Pakistani policy ever since it teamed up with the Taliban
in the mid-Nineties. Even now, it cannot be said for certain that Islamabad’s
links with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have been broken or that Pakistan’s
home-grown jehadis have lost hope in the ISI’s and Islamabad’s support
for their murderous cause. India, therefore, cannot afford to trust General
Musharraf — the villain of Kargil and a friend of the Taliban — till there
is irrefutable proof that he has realised the folly of his past policy
of coddling Islamic fundamentalists.