As US President George W Bush prepares
for possible meetings with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and President
Pervez Musharraf during the UN session next month, US relations with Pakistan
are under strain because of Musharraf's failure to end cross-border terrorism
against India, according to analyst John E Carbaugh.
"An increasing number of Bush administration
officials are pressing for a tougher US stance with Pakistan," Carbaugh
said, quoting "sources." Carbaugh cites the views of many scholars who
have expressed concern over Pakistani policies.
"Let us remember," wrote Selig
Harrison, director of the Asia Programme at the Centre for International
Policy in Washington, "that Pakistan was the chief political and financial
sponsor of the Taliban in Afghanistan from the beginning."
"Without a Taliban regime in Kabul,
Afghanistan never would have become a safe haven for al Qaeda. Pakistan
was, therefore, more than a little responsible for September 11. Even after
that attack, Islamabad turned against the Taliban only in response to intense
pressure from the US. Pakistani forces were ineffectual in sealing the
border with Afghanistan when US troops had Taliban and al- Qaeda fighters
on the run in late 2001, yet the Musharraf government refused to give the
US the right of hot pursuit into Pakistani territory. As a result, terrorist
units regrouped in Pakistan's border provinces and to this day continue
to harass US forces in Afghanistan," said Harrison.
According to Moeed Yusuf of the
Brookings Institution, had it not been for Pakistan's limited help in Afghanistan,
the country would have been a major target in Washington's war on terror.
"The support for extremist organisations
and the presence of radicals among Pakistani elements has caused great
concern in the West. Had it not been for the reversal of Pakistan's pro-Taliban
policy after 9/11, Pakistan would likely have been on the US list of terrorist
countries as implied by George Bush's 'with us or against us' ultimatum,"
he said.
Stephen Cohen of the Brookings
Institution said in an article titled 'The Jihadist Threat to Pakistan'
that radical Islamic groups - some of whom were involved in cross-border
terrorism against India - were seeking revolutionary changes in Pakistan's
political and social order.
Although Cohen played down the
danger from these groups in the near term, he warned that the longer term
threat of an Islamist coup was very real.
"The dangers of Islamic radicalism
in Pakistan in the short run have been exaggerated, but within a decade,
that country could truly become one of the world's most dangerous states,"
he maintained.
Harry Gould, visiting scholar in
the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Virginia, said
that the US had not learned its lesson from its Cold War support for Pakistan.