Asia Times: India/Pakistan


	May 24, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Pressure on US to broker peace
By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE - If the crisis in the Middle East has distracted Washington from focusing fully on its military operations against the Taliban and the al-Qaeda, the brewing showdown in South Asia could well unravel its entire war against terrorism. This is Washington's prime concern as it scrambles to prevent India and Pakistan from going to war.

The possibility of the two nuclear-armed neighbors going to war has increased sharply following last week's terrorist attack at Jammu, where at least 34 persons, many of them family members of army personnel, were killed. India blames Pakistan for the attack. Delhi is pointing to the sharp surge in terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley as evidence that there has been no change in Islamabad's policy of supporting terrorist attacks in India, notwithstanding President General Pervez Musharraf's statements distancing himself from religious extremism and terrorism. Indian Intelligence reports indicate that infiltrations into India from across the border have risen in recent months.

Although the Bush administration has repeatedly and publicly praised Musharraf's action against terrorism, US officials admit in private that Delhi is right - Musharraf has failed to match his words with concrete action against terrorists, especially with regard to Kashmir.

In fact, there have been reports that the Pentagon is not happy with Pakistan's half-hearted support to American forces hunting down the al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives either, especially in its tribal region. South Asia watchers in the US concede that New Delhi's anger and impatience with Pakistan is understandable. Where the US differs with India is the way the latter should respond to Pakistan. Washington has been counseling restraint. It is firmly opposed to India launching military strikes on Pakistan, however limited.

More than a million Indian and Pakistani soldiers stand in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation along the border. In December, when the troop deployment began following the attack on the Indian parliament, allegedly by a Pakistan-backed terrorist group, there were fears that India would resort to military strikes against Pakistan and that this could lead to an all-out war. Such fears have multiplied manifold this time around as India's patience with Pakistan is clearly running out. The US clearly recognizes that.

The possibility of war between India and Pakistan injects new uncertainties into American strategy in the war against terrorism. In fact, even the current high-level deployment of troops by both countries is perceived as hindering Washington's military operations against the al-Qaeda. The US has been pressuring Pakistan to commit more of its troops for deployment along the highly porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border to prevent Taliban and al- Qaeda fugitives from escaping into Pakistan. Musharraf has expressed his inability to do so, blaming the pressure of Indian deployment along the India-Pakistan border.

Over the past five months, Washington has been requesting India not to take military action against Pakistan as that would jeopardize its operations in Afghanistan. India, while holding back so far on military strikes against Pakistan, has flatly rejected dialogue or a withdrawal of its troops from the border. Its stock reply to American diplomats has been: Get Pakistan to stop infiltration of terrorists into Kashmir first.

"We believe that the US has not done enough to prevent Pakistan from persisting with its adventurist policy [of backing terrorism in India]. In the circumstances, it is difficult for India to continue to listen to American requests for restraint," an official in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) told Asia Times Online.

Indeed, that India's patience has virtually run out not only with Pakistan but also with US hectoring has been evident for some weeks now. India responded coolly to Washington's dispatch of Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca to the subcontinent - a mission that was aimed at nudging India and Pakistan to the negotiating table. The general feeling in India was that if the US wanted the tension defused it needed only to tighten the screws on Islamabad. "Its call on Delhi to exercise restraint is absurd," the MEA official said.

In fact, signaling Delhi's irritation with Washington's appeasement of Musharraf even as he continued to push terrorists into India, Rocca was politely refused meetings with Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra. Rocca's visit to India was therefore a non-starter even before she set foot on Indian soil. The terrorist attack at Jammu, which took place while she was in New Delhi, simply dealt the final blow to a mission.

In a bid to mollify a furious New Delhi, the US government used some strong words to condemn the terrorist act at Jammu. However, while it described the attack as "terrible and outrageous" and clarified that terrorism against India was "unacceptable", there was silence with regard to Pakistan's role in fostering cross-border terrorism. Rocca, in fact, drew a distinction between the war against terrorism and the India-Pakistan standoff. "It's a very complicated issue. It is not black and white," she said.

The Indian government is under tremendous domestic pressure to give Islamabad a "fitting reply" and to teach it a lesson "once and for all" for its continuing support to terrorism in Kashmir. There is a growing demand for launching military strikes, with or without American help.

"Delhi's dilemma, however, is that it does not really want to defy world opinion, especially the US. The government does not have the stomach for military strikes," says an Indian Intelligence official angrily. "It does not want to fritter away the huge gains it has made in building a new strategic equation with Washington." Military-to-military cooperation between the two countries is growing. In fact, a joint military exercise involving commandos of the two countries is going on at present near Agra. Two more exercises of this kind - one in India and another in Alaska - are scheduled for later this year.

There is also the nuclear issue. New Delhi might plan for a limited strike, but what should prevent Islamabad from pressing the nuclear button? Musharraf has said that he would use the nuclear weapon if attacked by India.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is scheduled to travel to South Asia in the first week of June. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will follow him. In a Washington-datelined report, the Times of India's Chidanand Rajghatta writes, "By spacing out the visits citing scheduling difficulties, the Bush administration appears to be buying time to work on Pakistan while letting Islamabad stew in the pressure New Delhi is exerting. It would also suggest Washington does not believe a war is imminent despite the build-up of both arms and rhetoric."

A report in the weekly newsmagazine India Today says that the US is likely to get tough with the Pakistanis. It quotes a senior American official as saying that the US will tell Musharraf "to shape up of we will pull the plug". The article says that the US "is planning to deliver the same kind of ultimatum it gave him after September 11".

With war clouds looming over the subcontinent, the US has been generous with its assurances to India that it will get Musharraf to crack down on terrorism. But as in the case of Musharraf's verbal pledges with regard to terrorism, the final test of Washington's credibility in India's eyes will be whether it matches its words with concrete action on the ground.

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