US Senator John Kerry was in New Delhi and then in Islamabad early this week as President-elect Barack Obama's special envoy. So far what we recently had here and in India as American callers, represented the Bush Administration.
Their concern about the rapidly deteriorating security situation in South Asia following the Mumbai terror attacks was understandable, but looking to the future we all believe that President George Bush is a man of yesterday. And so are his policies. The future belongs to Barack Obama and his team, in which Senator Kerry is expected to take an important position and play a leading role.
As he returns to Washington, Senator Kerry has been named chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the slot vacated by Joseph Biden, the Vice President-elect. In the Obama administration it would be mainly Hillary Clinton-John Kerry combine that is likely to call the shots on foreign policy matters and not Joseph Biden, earlier billed as a potential inspirator of the president-elect's worldview in respect of foreign policy.
It is a measure of Senator Kerry's intellectual integrity that he is amenable to modifying and reforming his perspectives and perceptions in deference to logic and reason. Hence the difference in his statements about the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency made in New Delhi before meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and after he had the talks with President Zardari in Islamabad.
"We would like to see an ISI that is reforming and brought completely under civilian control", he told the Indian Express ahead of his talks with Manmohan Singh. That had greatly pleased the Indian media hell-bent as it is on defaming Pakistan's premier intelligence agency.
But after meeting Zardari in Islamabad he told a select media group that 'no evidence had been found to link Mumbai terror attacks to the Pakistan government or the ISI... General Kiyani fully realises what needs to be done in the prevalent situation and so does the Director General of ISI Lieutenant General Shuja Pasha'.
This expression of neutrality and a balanced viewpoint had materialised despite the fact that India had sent post haste its foreign secretary, Shiv Shanker Menon, to the United States to dissuade President-elect Obama from appointing a special envoy on Kashmir. India is greatly worried over Barack Obama's regional security perspective in which Kashmir blinks as a flashpoint.
Of course, he shares India's anxiety over the role of non-state actors like Lashker-e-Taiba in breeding terrorism in South Asia, but he seems convinced also that as long as the Kashmir dispute remains unresolved such entities would remain in the field.
By projecting the Lashker as an errand boy of the ISI, the Indian government tries to tarnish the image of the Kashmiris' freedom struggle. Now that its campaign - conducted in close conjunction with Israel - to malign Pakistan's nuclear capability has fizzled out, New Delhi has turned its focus on the ISI. Hence the high agenda priority that the ISI received at Senator Kerry's talks with the Indian leadership.
Like all intelligence agencies, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency too has been the staple of a lot of myth and reality. Its stellar contribution in rolling out Soviet aggression from Afghanistan earned it the image of a world class institution. But the people of Pakistan were not greatly enamoured of its successes.
Thanks to its role as a political watchdog, bestowed upon it by the late President Z.A. Bhutto in the 70s by creating its Political Wing, which was enormously enlarged during the eleven years of Ziaul Haq's dictatorial rule, the ISI had become a tool of state oppression. But no more, as its notorious political wing has been abolished and the agency has reverted to its professional role of collecting intelligence on matters concerning national security.
Rightly then it remains under a sharp focus of India and some other anti-Pakistan countries. India would very much like to link it with Lashkar-e-Taiba and other extremist outfits. It is hoped the United States leaders would see through this game. It is necessary for better future of Pak-US relations that the Obama administration gives up the White House practice of seeing South Asian developments through the Indian prism.
nicely said! we won't have a voice in the world unless our media (or should I say western intelligence assets) focus on project Pakistan's image, instead of just focusing on the army/intelligence agencies and putting corrupt politicians, like Zardari, in power.
go take your fanatic crap out on someone else. Better yet dont do anything at all. Pakistan China Iran ex Soviet States and even Russia need to come down kick some serious a** and show the world whats up. India man you have got serious nurves bulls**tting about us and then saying we attacked you. How stupid are your leaders anyway.
