Who's winning?
Source: Timesofindia
15 Feb 2009, 0036 hrs IST, Shobhan Saxena , TNN
When you are locked in a war of nerves with an old adversary, you can't wait for him to blink. But that's what seems to have happened. All of a
So far, so good. But security experts and international analysts are asking a further pertinent question: Is there really a change of heart in Islamabad? Or is this just a break in its old diplomatic games with India? First things first. Something extraordinary happened on Thursday, when Pakistani prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani's advisor on interior affairs, Rehman Malik, made a series of important statements in full view of the world's press, accepting the role of some Pakistanis in the Mumbai carnage and promising tough action. The same day Pakistan's foreign secretary gave a list of 30 questions to India's high commissioner. The future of Pakistan's investigation into the matter now lies in India's answers to these questions. It could be a trap for India. "We made a mistake by focusing too much on Mumbai, forgetting that it was one of the hundreds of terrorist attacks on India in the past few decades. Now, Pakistan says it has caught six guys for the Mumbai attack and what do we do?" asks Ajai Sahni, executive director of Delhi's Institute for Conflict Management. "It has been a miscalculation in our diplomacy because even if Pakistan hangs these six men, the larger issue of terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Al Badr operating from its soil remains unaddressed. And what about the involvement of the ISI and army?" Calling Pakistan a "minimal satisfier", Sahni says it's a ploy. "They have been handing over to the US some of the peripheral terror elements since 9/11 and yet they have been supporting the groups fighting the international forces in Afghanistan. So, if we think that by arresting six people, Pakistan has changed its course on terrorism, we will be deluding ourselves because the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan remains intact and its supporters in the government are still active," says Sahni, who tracks terror networks in South Asia. Former diplomats and Pakistan experts agree. "They have acted out of compulsion, not conviction," says G Parthasarthy who was posted in Pakistan in the '80s. "Very soon, they will go back to their old ways," he says, adding that Pakistan's demand it be allowed to try 26/11's sole surviving gunman Ajmal Amir Kasab is just a way of piling the pressure on India. "A trial in Pakistan will be a total farce. It will be like the trial of nuclear scientist A Q Khan, who has been released now, or the conviction of Omar Sheikh Sayeed, who got the death sentence six years ago for the murder of Daniel Pearl, but the order has not been carried out though the anti-terror law calls for execution within a month of conviction." The success of the trial of the six men arrested by Pakistan will depend on the quality of evidence against them. It's thought interesting that Malik constantly used the words "credible" and "tenable' evidence to the world's press. Clearly, Pakistan has publicly asked India to give "solid evidence" against the alleged Mumbai plotters. Parthasarthy says this is part of Pakistan's game. "If the trial fails they will blame India for not giving them enough evidence." But Delhi is unlikely to share all the evidence — including the calls log — with a neighbour it so distrusts. This, many believe, will be Pakistan's trump card. It will accuse India of failure to cooperate and bad faith. "By mocking (India's) 26/11 dossier at his press conference and by putting questions about Hemant Karkare and Lt Col Srikant Purohit in its list, Malik has already set the stage for this process to fail halfway," says a ministry of home affairs official, who doesn't want to be named. So has Pakistan won this round of the game? Wilson John, senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and author of Karachi: An International Terrorist Capital in the Making, says he doesn't think "Pakistan has scored diplomatically over India as they have not done anything about the terrorist network, which India has been asking them to dismantle, and they have not addressed the issue of ISI's involvement. So, India will continue to raise these issue and they just can't get away with it". But Islamabad-based terrorism expert Zahid Husain sees the recent developments as a "turning point" in bilateral relations. "It shows that Pakistan is serious about fighting terrorism. Both India and Pakistan are victims of terrorism and they have to work together to fight it." Perhaps, but is India failing to make the right strategic moves with respect to Pakistan? Yes, says an Indian diplomat, because we place too much faith in the West. "Almost every year, we get excited about the possibility of Pakistan being put on the list of terrorist nations or facing economic sanctions, and then we hear that it's getting billions of dollars in aid and being called a partner in the ‘war on terror'. And we look like idiots. We have put too much faith in the West and in the process lost our leverage with Pakistan." Pakistan knows too well that the West needs it as much as it needs the West. Malik's confessions seem to be part of this design. He has killed two birds with one stone: turned off the heat from Western allies and put India on the spot. Sometimes, one blinks just to rest the eyes before the next round of eyeballing. New Delhi vs Islamabad TALE OF TRIUMPHS 1948 | As Pakistani army regulars follow the Kabayalis into Kashmir, New Delhi makes Hari Singh, then king of J&K, sign the Instrument of Accession, making the state part of India and weakening Pakistan's claim over it 1971 | India sends its army into East Pakistan to support the Mukti Bahini. Pak is bifurcated and Bangladesh is born. A military victory and a foreign policy coup 1972 | Indira Gandhi and Z A Bhutto sign the Simla Agreement, the cornerstone of bilateral relations to this day 1974 | As Z A Bhutto cozies up to China, India tests its first nuclear device in an attempt to join the N-club, dehyphenate itself from Pak & send a message to Mao 1999 | Battle erupts in Kargil; Pakistan forced to accept its troops were present in the area. This creates a rift between Musharraf and PM Nawaz Sharif, who orders his army to withdraw after a visit to the Clinton White House ...AND BLUNDERS 1949 | Nehru's plebiscite offer at the UN makes Kashmir an international issue and gives Pakistan a stick to beat India with 1998 | India's Pokhran-II is followed by Pakistan's nuclear test. Both face international sanctions and India gets hyphenated yet again with Pakistan 2001 | India invites Musharraf for peace talks. He leaves Agra in a huff, makes a strong statement on Kashmir, and India ends up legitimizing the rule of a dictator | |
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