Indias Suspicion of Pakistan Clouds U.S. Strategy in Region
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan The terrorist attacks in Mumbai occurred as India and Pakistan, two big, hostile and nuclear-armed nations, were delicately moving toward improved relations with the encouragement of the United States and in particular the incoming Obama administration.
Those steps could quickly be derailed, with deep consequences for the United States, if India finds Pakistani fingerprints on the well-planned operation. India has raised suspicions. Pakistan has vehemently denied them.
But no matter who turns out to be responsible for the Mumbai attacks, their scale and the choice of international targets will make the agenda of the new American administration harder.
Reconciliation between India and Pakistan has emerged as a basic tenet in the approaches to foreign policy of President-elect Barack Obama, and the new leader of Central Command, Gen. David H. Petraeus. The point is to persuade Pakistan to focus less of its military effort on India, and more on the militants in its lawless tribal regions who are ripping at the soul of Pakistan.
A strategic pivot by Pakistans military away from a focus on India to an all-out effort against the Taliban and their associates in Al Qaeda, the thinking goes, would serve to weaken the militants who are fiercely battling American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
But attacks as devastating as those that unfolded in Mumbai whether ultimately traced to homegrown Indian militants or to others from abroad, or a combination seem likely to sour relations, fuel distrust and hamper, at least for now, Americas ambitions for reconciliation in the region.
The early signs were that India, where state elections are scheduled next week, would take a tough stand and blame its neighbor. In his statement to the nation, the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, who in the past has been relatively moderate in his approach to Pakistan, sounded a harsh tone.
He said the attacks probably had external linkages, and were carried out by a group based outside the country. There would be a cost to our neighbors, he said, if their territory was found to have been used as a launching pad.
The prime minister did not name Pakistan. But everyone certainly on Pakistani television news programs Thursday night knew that is what he meant, and that the long history of Pakistani-Indian finger-pointing had returned.
The Hindustan Times, an influential Indian newspaper, reported Thursday that Indias security agencies believed that the multiple attacks in Mumbai were by an Islamic militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, operating out of Pakistan.
According to the newspaper, the special secretary at the Home Affairs Ministry, M. L. Kumawat, said that Lashkar-e-Taiba was a distinct possibility. The newspaper stopped short of saying that Pakistans premier intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, had helped Lashkar-e-Taiba plan and execute the Mumbai operation, a role that the Indian government has ascribed to the Pakistani intelligence agency in past terrorist attacks.
But if India discovers that the intelligence agency is connected to the Mumbai attacks even rogue elements of the agency the slightly warmer relationship that has been fostered between the neighbors would no doubt return to a deep freeze. And that may have partly been the motivation of whoever carried out the attacks.
If the Indians believe this was Lashkar-e-Taiba and Al Qaeda, as they are suggesting, we could see a crisis like 2002 with enormous pressure to do something, an American official said on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter. The key will be if the Indians see an ISI hand.
After a dozen people died in an assault on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi in December 2001, India blamed a jihadist group, Jaish-e-Muhammad, and said Inter-Services Intelligence had backed the operation. For the next year the neighbors remained on the brink of war with forces massed along their 1,800-mile border.
According to a new book, The Search for Al Qaeda, by Bruce Riedel, an adviser on South Asia to Mr. Obama, Osama bin Laden worked with the Pakistani intelligence agency in the late 1980s to create Lashkar-e-Taiba as a jihadist group intended to challenge Indian rule in Kashmir.
But the new president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, appears to be acting according to Americas playbook for better relations with India.
A businessman at heart, Mr. Zardari understands the benefit of strong trade between India and Pakistan. Now on life support from the International Monetary Fund, Pakistan would profit immensely from the normalization of relations.
Mr. Zardari has called for visa-free travel, a huge step from a situation in which there are not even scheduled flights between the nations capitals. Speaking to an Indian audience over a video link from Islamabad last weekend, Mr. Zardari proposed a no first nuclear strike policy with India. The idea came as a shock to the Pakistani Army, which has always refused to commit to a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons.
Going further, Mr. Zardari said South Asia should be a nuclear-weapon-free zone, which could be achieved by a nonnuclear treaty.
I can get around my Parliament to this view, but can you get around the Indian Parliament to this view? he asked.
Pakistani officials said the presidents sentiments did not reflect the policies of the powerful Pakistani security establishment, whose existence has been predicated since partition of the subcontinent 61 years ago on viewing India as the enemy.
It will take more than off-the-cuff remarks intended to please a dinner audience to change these longstanding policies, Pakistani newspaper editorials said.
He wants improved relations with India, said Sajjan M.Gohel, director for international security of the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London. But Zardari needs the full support of the Pakistani security apparatus, and he doesnt have it.
Some of the moves toward improving the atmosphere between India and Pakistan were under way on the night of the Mumbai attacks. The Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, on a four-day trip to India, had just finished discussions with the Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, on terrorism, trade and the loosening of visa restrictions when the terrorists struck.
Visibly moved by the attacks, Mr. Qureshi appeared on Indian television on Thursday, calling the attacks barbaric. He urged both sides not to resort to knee-jerk reactions and to drop the usual blame game. Across the board, senior Pakistani officials condemned the attacks.
But there was also immediate anxiety among Pakistanis about the Indian prime ministers unequivocal tone. It is unfair to blame Pakistan or Pakistanis for these acts of terrorism even before an investigation is undertaken, said the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani. Instead of scoring political points at the expense of a neighboring country that is itself a victim of terrorism, it is time for Indias leaders to work together with Pakistans elected leaders in putting up a joint front against terrorism.
Unless care is exercised, one of the apparent goals of the Mumbai attack will be achieved, said Moonis Ahmar, a lecturer in international relations at Karachi University. And the new American agenda of reconciliation between India and Pakistan will be sacrificed. Its a well-thought-out conspiracy to destabilize relations between the two countries, Mr. Ahmar said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/world/asia/28diplo.html?hp
