trust pakistan

[Guest guest]

Namaskar,

 

The world is once again asking us to TRUST Pakistan. Have we not done so since

1947, time and again they have made paper committements. Here is a piece by

Shri Shenoy that draws attention to the perils of trusting them again. By

trusting we are assuming they will change, which means, they will continue

cross border terrorism, we will react, be on the defensive, go through

continous pain without making them pay for the low cost proxy war. 

 

When will India decide to be pro-active, stop reacting and set its own agenda.

Sometimes I wonder, if all the energy used by the Pakis to ruin India, were

actually used to Create a prosperous state, would not the history of

the sub-continent been different!

with prem and om                sanjevv

 

We trust Pervez at our peril     T.V.R. ShenoyIf (he) is sincere in proclaiming

his desire for peace, we will be able to congratulate ourselves on having

reached agreement; if he has other designs or if he has to give way one day to

some fanatic we will at least have postponed the outbreak of a war, and that is

indeed a gain. I might be quoting any of those anodyne memoranda on the attitude

that India should adopt, vis-a-vis General Musharraf. But this was actually

penned 70 years ago. The author was the French military attache in Berlin and

the subject in question was Adolf Hitler. Henry Kissinger termed this

masterpiece of analysis `fatuous' in his work, Diplomacy. Personally, I would

call it `suicidal'. Why is it that, both then and now, people somehow persuade

themselves that some `fanatic' is biding his time to topple the supposedly

reasonable man now in power? Forget Hitler, what is there in General

Musharraf's record which demonstrates any willingness on his part to answer

India's concerns? If anything, there is ample proof that the General will seize

any chance to gain a momentary tactical advantage over India. However, I suppose

there is a kernel of truth to the `fanatic waiting in the wings' theory.

Actually, I understand that there are 30,000 of them —all jihadis to the marrow

of their bones. Given that the vocation of a jihadi is to offer battle, what, or

who, shall be their target? The answer was offered several months ago by Mullah

Omar of the Taliban. The four greatest foes of Islam, the self-proclaimed

Amir-ul-Momineen (Leader of the Faithful) stated, were the United States,

Russia, Israel and India. Look at it from General Musharraf's perspective. Up

to September 11 last year, he was a friend, guide and philosopher to these

fanatics. He strove to protect them from American wrath even under the new

dispensation, coming up with the theory of the `moderate Taliban' (which ranks

right up there with `honest Iago' as the ultimate oxymoron!). He did succeed in

whisking them away by air even as Afghanistan's cities succumbed one after

another to American bombardment. The jihadis have reasons enough to be grateful

to the General, but gratitude doesn't last forever. (Unless you are a

Congressman, and think of gratitude to the First Family as an heirloom passed

from generation unto generation.) So, what does one do with 30,000 unemployed,

armed-to-the-teeth jihadis? The choice of targets was clarified by Mullah Omar.

And reconfirmed on April 23 when Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called `20th

hijacker', appeared in an American federal court. In his speech he called on

Muslims to `reconquer' India, destroy the Jewish race, and batter the United

States and Russia to the ground. Of these four, General Musharraf knows better

than to turn the jihadis on American targets. Geography makes it impossible to

shift them en masse to Israel. And, by the same logic, India is closer than

Russia. Leaving the jihadis unemployed might have suggested a fifth target to

them — General Musharraf himself. So it was this that persuaded the General to

reopen 72 terrorist training camps that he had shut down in January. This was

enough to take care of only 3,000 militants, but that would be enough to give

the General a little breathing space. The Pakistani dictator knew that India

had threatened to go to war immediately after the attack on Parliament. But he

calculated that the presence of American troops in his country offered a shield

of sorts; India, he thought, would never attack for fear of arousing American

wrath by accidentally killing US troops operating from Pakistan. He thought

that American territorial waters extended to Karachi and American airspace to

the Line of Control. It all went disastrously wrong when India sent out the

message that exporting jihadis would lead to an all-out war. The General's

bluster of nuclear war was not taken terribly seriously by Delhi. But, rather

to his dismay, it was accepted at face value by the Americans. Pakistan was

told that there would be no American intervention if war broke out (especially

after the General had the bad taste to use jihadi language such as the promise

of shahaadat). Wilting under the pressure, General Musharraf vowed to rein in

the terrorists without any more talk of `freedom fighters in Kashmir'. But this

leaves the General back where he was in late January or early February. He still

has 30,000 angry men buzzing around in his country. And, in one respect, he is

actually worse off than before because today he lacks even the fig-leaf of

getting a third party to intervene over Jammu and Kashmir. Caught between

frustrated jihadis, a determined India and a disinterested US, what does a poor

dictator do? There are only two options. General Musharraf can keep break his

promises to the US, keep exporting terrorism and risk war. Or he can take the

jihadis head on — meaning another kind of war in Pakistan. As I have said

before, General Musharraf is a wonderful tactician. The attack on Kargil, that

televised breakfast conference in Agra, and his rapid manoeuvres in the

post-September 11 world, are all evidence of that. But he is a poor strategist

without a clear roadmap of where he is going. His habit of grasping an

immediate perceived advantage has already cost him the confidence of India's

leaders; it now bids fair to lose him the friendship of the US as well. I will

wager the General shall skate as close to the edge as possible, reining in the

militants until the weather makes Indian military action tougher. The skies may

be clear today, but aren't clouds supposed to gather as the monsoon draws

closer? We trust General Musharraf at our own peril.     URL:

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