Author: Chidanand Rajghatta
Publication: The Times of India
Date: January 9, 2010
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/US-Pakistan-bickering-gets-ugly-as-ISI-fingers-American-diplomats/articleshow/5425688.cms
The wheels seem to be coming off US-Pakistan
relations with the once close allies squabbling publicly even as Islamabad
is whipping up hysteria over the so-called Indian threats and American machinations
to weasel out of its obligation to combat home-grown terrorism.
The simmering discord between Washington and
Islamabad came to a boil this week when the US ambassador to Pakistan publicly
complained about harassment of American diplomatic personnel by Pakistani
authorities and obliquely hinted that Islamabad risked losing US aid and projects
if they continued to deny visas to US officials and space for the US mission
to fulfill its multi-billion assistance program.
Ambassador Anne Patterson's warning at a business
meeting in Karachi was followed up by a rare public admonition of Pakistan
from the US mission in Islamabad in which it expressed concern about the ''continued
provocative actions and false allegations against US personnel working to
implement the new partnership between the leaders of Pakistan and the United
States.''
The wording of the statement suggested that
the US believes there is a growing militaristic constituency in Pakistan that
is now operating independently of the civilian government. The blog Politico
put it rather more
bluntly under the headline, "Pakistan's ISI steps up harassment of US
Embassy," reporting that the ISI had even been putting pictures (with
addresses) of US diplomatic personnel in Urdu newspapers" putting their
lives in danger.
"Several times recently the RSO (Regional
Security officer) at the Embassy has had to contact folks in their offices
during the day, and tell them that they can't go home to their house tonight
because of the unwanted attention caused by the ISI/Journalist provocations.
Station and Embassy have complained to ISI - but no acknowlegement (not surprising)
and no abatement of the activity (worrisome)," it quoted an Af-Pak hand
as saying.
Egged on by a hysterical section of the media
promoting wild conspiracy theories, hard-line elements in the police and military
have been detaining US vehicles and personnel, often accusing them of not
carry proper diplomatic papers and registration and carrying weapons. US vehicles
and personnel typically do not display diplomatic registration or identity
so they cannot be identified by terrorist hit squads. One Pakistani newspaper
called "Nation," which specializes in rabid conspiracy theories,
ran a Wall Street Journal correspondent out of the country recently by alleging
he was a CIA agent, recalling the horrible tragedy which befell his predecessor
Daniel Pearl. The same paper has carried many stories about the alleged suspicious
activity of US diplomats.
In a stern warning to Pakistan, the US Embassy
called for ''immediate action'' by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which
it said ''has responsibility to facilitate proper arrangements under which
a foreign mission may operate with full security.'' The mission also asked
Pakistani officials ''to implement immediately the mutually agreed upon procedures
for the issuance of license plates to US. Mission vehicles and to cease these
contrived incidents involving US Mission vehicles and personnel.''
In the same toxic spirit, hard-line sections
in Pakistan have also willfully contrived to distort remarks by the Indian
Army chief Deepak Kapoor to drum up hysteria over the alleged Indian threat.
Familiar policy formulations by the Indian general that New Delhi has to prepare
for a war under a nuclear overhang because of Pakistani provocation under
nuclear cover, has been conflated to ''Indian General threatens Pakistan with
nuclear war'' (despite India's professed policy no-first-use of nuclear weapons).
In the most recent instance, Kapoor's remarks
about the need for India developing capability to fight a two-front war has
been translated to ''Indian General threatens Pakistan and China with war.''
While a few Pakistani analysts have responded soberly to the new doctrines
being discussed in New Delhi, most commentators, including current and former
generals, diplomats, and military frontmen, have reacted hysterically to what
would be considered doctrinal deliberations in any mature society.
The idea behind the whipping up of mass hysteria
against US and India in what is now being dubbed ''Paranoidistan'' appears
to be a ploy by hard-line elements in Islamabad to disengage from fulfilling
its bilateral and international obligations to tackle terrorist elements.
With each terrorist incident, Pakistan is coming under increasing pressure
from US to give up its obsession with the non-existent threat from India and
focus on confronting its home-grown threats eating away at the country.
The Pakistani military has signaled clearly
that it does not subscribe to the US prescription, and General Kapoor's outline
of new Indian doctrines has come in handy for this escape act. After distorting
Gen Kapoor's remarks and generating a sulfurous discourse in the media, the
Pakistani military high command and the civilian cabinet defense committee
both met last week to assert that ''Pakistan would never allow its security
to be jeopardized.'' Pakistan's beleaguered president Asif Ali Zardari, under
pressure from the army, also joined this military-ISI generated hysteria by
promising a 1000-year confrontation with India over Kashmir.
None of this has escaped the attention of
Washington, which this week dispatched yet another high-powered Congressional
delegation led by former presidential candidate John McCain to talk sense
to Pakistan. McCain was unrelenting in response to the familiar Pakistani
protests against drone attacks, bluntly insisting that the ''(drone) attacks
are imperative to defeat the enemy,'' and ''with an improved decision making
process the civilian causalities are totally minimized.''
The US delegation also heard protests from
the Pakistani leadership about security measures introduced by Washington
for screening Pakistani nationals among citizens of 13 other state sponsors
of terrorism and ''countries of interest.'' But with new arrests in the Najibullah
Zazi case and developments in the CIA forward base bombing case both revealing
links to Pakistan, US threshold for Islamabad's antics is diminishing all
the time even as Pakistan is seen as a state sponsor of terrorism in all but
formal designation.
In fact, Pakistan - or Paranoidistan, as some
officials refer to it in private - becomes the immediate focus of attention
after any terrorist attack, including ones like the Christmas Day bombing
attempt of an airplane in Detroit, where there was no immediate Pakistani
link. ''The fact that this particular person was not trained in Pakistan does
not change the fact that the inspiration for all of this comes from al-Qaida,
and al-Qaida's leadership is based in the remotest areas on the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border,'' US special representative to Af-Pak Richard Holbrooke, who will
head to Islamabad next week, said at a meeting on Thursday.
Separately, John Brennan, President Obama's
assistant for counterterrorism, said al-Qaida in Yemen, which trained the
Christmas Day Nigerian bomber, ''is an extension of the terror outfit's core
coming out of Pakistan.''
