Author: Hiranmay Karlekar
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 28, 2002
While the Government is understandably
furious with Pakistan for the latter's relentless proxy war waged against
this country through cross-border terrorism, it should realise that a war
is what the Musharraf regime has every reason to welcome at this juncture.
This will become clear from a study of the strategic context in which the
present tensions have to be seen. To defeat Pakistan's proxy war, India
has to radically change its response pattern and rethink the basic premises
of its approach towards Islamabad.
The strategic context mentioned
above has been set both by Pakistan's continuing cross-border terrorism
and the United States-led war against global terror. Pakistan had no alternative
to joining the latter. Given its close links with the Al-Qaeda and the
Taliban, refusal would have brought immediate and severe US retribution.
Islamabad's ruling military and civilian elites, unlike Osama bin Laden
and other jihadis, are comfort-loving and have much to lose and, hence,
flinched from the prospect.
Having sided with the Americans,
the Musharraf regime's main problem has been ensuring its own survival
and persisting with - as well as retaining its capacity for perpetrating
- cross-border terrorism, its principal means of annexing Kashmir and implementing
Pakistan's basic strategic objective of balkanizing India and dominating
the sub-continent. The question of the regime's survival arises because
a large section in the Pakistan's Army and Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) Directorate are Islamic fundamentalists with deep sympathy for, and
close links with, the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Angry with the Musharraf regime
for supporting the Americans, and capable of posing a serious threat to
it, they can be mollified only if they can be convinced that alliance with
the US is a tactical move which enables Pakistan to provide clandestine
shelter to Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders and men fleeing Afghanistan, and
keep alive the organisational infrastructure for perpetrating cross-border
terrorism against India.
To carry conviction with Islamic
fundamentalists, the Musharraf regime has allowed leaders and men of the
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban fleeing Afghanistan, to enter Pakistan and the
ISI to shelter them. It has sought to retain the capacity for perpetrating
cross-border terrorism by splitting up banned fundamentalist Islamic terrorist
organisations like the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e- Mohammad (JeM)
and reincarnating the fragments under different names. In fact, it has
tried to kill two birds with the same stone by deploying escapees from
Afghanistan in its proxy war against India. They account for a significant
section of about 3,000 terrorists who have been housed in 60 camps recently
opened in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK). Also, apart from those sheltered
in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, about 20,000 or so have been
accommodated in tents outside Muzaffarabad, the capital of POK.
The Musharraf regime must have realised
that the Americans would not be amused if they found out what it was up
to. It, however, gambled on their not doing anything drastic - obviously
hoping that the US and its allies would not push it beyond a point while
the war against terrorism continued. It seems also to have relied on Pakistan's
unmatched ability to take Americans for a ride. Things were going rather
well, particularly after President Musharraf's strident condemnation of
terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism in his address to the people of his
country on January 12 and his categorical assertion that even jihad "in
the name of Kashmir" would not be allowed. US leaders hailed the speech.
The banning of the LeT and JeM, the closure of their offices, freezing
of their accounts and the arrest of around 2,000 of their followers further
confirmed them in the view that the Pakistani President was a reliable
and resolute ally in the war against terrorism.
It, however, soon became clear that
the banning and freezing of the accounts of the LeT and JeM were farcical
exercises. The arrested were released in a few days. Also, Pakistani intelligence
inputs about the presence of Al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists in Pakistan
were minimal. The Americans became suspicious and started sending their
own police and special forces personnel along with Pakistani soldiers hunting
Al-Qaeda and Taliban escapees in Pakistan's tribal areas.
This has angered not only Islamic
fundamentalists in the Pakistani Army and the ISI but also many tribal
chiefs who sympathise with the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda, or are steeped
in the Afghan custom of not turning out a refuge-seeker, or have made the
grant of refuge into good business. The chiefs have warned that they will
attack US forces if the latter try to ferret out suspects from their ranks.
There has thus emerged a very genuine possibility of clashes between tribal
chieftains and US-led forces. Also, the Americans cannot be unaware of
the camps in POK and that they harbour thousands of Al-Qaeda and Taliban
terrorists. They will, sooner or later, destroy these unless Pakistan dismantles
these and hands over to them the people they want.
The US can hardly afford to leave
thousands of Al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists under Pakistani protection
given reports by its Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies
that both organisations have fully regrouped and are planning major strikes
against it and Britain. Indeed, the US-led war against terrorism is liable
to turn into a war against Pakistan unless the latter drastically changes
its duplicitous policies.
An India-Pakistan war will upset
the logical drift of events and introduce many imponderables into the situation.
The urgent need to stop it will shift the attention of the US and the West
from the war against terrorism. It will enable Pakistan to withdraw its
troops engaged in joint operations with the US-led forces along the Afghanistan
border on the ground that they are needed at the front. All this and the
confusion created by the war, will give the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban further
time to regroup and strike back. It will enable President Musharraf to
rally the bulk of Pakistan behind him and drive a wedge between India and
the US. The latter, annoyed with India for having disrupted its war against
terrorism, may then lean more towards Pakistan.
While it can be no one's case that
India mortgages its options to the US, the strategic importance of its
ties with the latter and the increasing convergence of the interests of
the two countries in the region, should not be forgotten. Besides, thanks
to pressure by the US, Russia and other countries, any India-Pakistan war
will be short. Hence, even the most spectacular strikes by India will not
permanently destroy Pakistan's capacity to unleash cross-border terrorism.
The latter will be revived sooner than later because, defeat, as in the
1971 war, will leave the generals thirsting for revenge and the social,
economic and cultural breeding grounds of terrorism will remain.
On the other hand, India can keep
Pakistan permanently on the defensive by waging a relentless proxy war
against it by utilising its ethnic, religious and political faultlines.
It will have a natural advantage in this in terms of both its resources
and size. It has the strategic depth to withstand a proxy war in border
areas without crumbling. Pakistan does not have it, and a well-planned
and relentlessly-executed proxy war can play havoc with its life. India
has the blueprints for it. It must summon the will, recognising that friendship
with Pakistan is a mirage that forever beckons the seminar-circuit dilettante.
