THE DEAL THAT NEVER WAS

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    For a country that aspires to join the ranks of Great Powers in the not too distant a future, India's prickly reaction to reports and statements that the US could sign a civilian nuclear deal with Pakistan, as well as its quiet satisfaction, if not relief, that no such deal was signed, was quite unnecessary, more so because it deflected attention from the more substantial aspects of the US-Pakistan relationship which in the near future will impinge upon India's vital security interests.

A cool contemplation of the existing diplomatic and strategic realities should have been enough for Indian media and policymakers to know that a civilian nuclear deal for Pakistan was not on offer, at least not for the foreseeable future. The only difference was that unlike the past, when the US would unceremoniously rebuff Pakistan's oft expressed desire for a civilian nuclear deal similar to the one that the US signed with India, this time around the US was willing to hear the Pakistanis out during the latest round of Strategic Dialogue between the two countries. So far this is the only concession that Pakistan has got from the US as far as a civilian nuclear deal is concerned.

Pakistan wants a civilian nuclear deal not so much because it will solve the debilitating energy crisis that the country faces, but more because it will fulfil Pakistan's obsessive quest for strategic parity with India by accepting it as a nuclear weapons state. The legitimacy that such recognition will give to Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme will not only allay Pakistan's fears of being deprived of its nuclear assets but also end the technology denial regimes that it currently faces. More than anything else, it is this strategic dimension of a civilian nuclear deal that Pakistanis hanker for. After all, it makes very little sense for Pakistan wanting a nuclear deal to get over its massive energy deficit today because, even if the civilian nuclear deal comes through in the next few years, the first nuclear power plant will not become operational for another 10, maybe 15, years.

Quite aside the natural proclivity of Pakistanis to overstate and overplay their strengths, and understate and underplay their weaknesses, even the most delusional Pakistani would know that a civilian nuclear deal is not quite within reach. Despite the growing dependence of the US on Pakistan to sort out Afghanistan, it is unlikely that the US will be willing to go so far as to reward Pakistan with a nuclear deal. Offering such a deal to Pakistan can neither be justified on economic grounds, nor on strategic grounds and is certainly going to be very difficult for any US administration to sell politically at home and diplomatically abroad.

In any case, if the Obama administration ever decided to sign a civilian nuclear deal with Pakistan, it will take years before such a deal can actually become operational, during which time many things could change in the relationship between the US and Pakistan which in turn could kill the deal. But even if no such thing happens, and the US stakes in Pakistan remain strong, a civilian nuclear deal will have to traverse through torturous negotiations with some very tough bargaining, not to mention intrusive conditionalities. Given Pakistan's proliferation record and the fears over the security of its nuclear assets, it would be highly unrealistic to imagine that the conditions imposed on Pakistan will be exactly the same as those imposed on India. And the tough conditions that are likely to be imposed on Pakistan could easily become a deal-breaker.

Assuming that the US and Pakistani administration do manage to strike a deal, the agreement will then have to be passed through the US Congress, which is easier said than done. If India, despite its impeccable track record and its reputation as a responsible state, faced a lot of opposition over the nuclear deal in the US Congress, what are the chances of a country like Pakistan managing to get the Congress to pass a nuclear deal? The Ayatollah's of non-proliferation in the US are going to mount such massive pressure that it could be well near impossible to get the Congress to vote for a civilian nuclear deal with Pakistan.

Even if the US Congress allows the deal, it will then have to go before IAEA and the NSG. Had it not been for the personal intervention of George W Bush, the Indian deal might never been have passed in the NSG. Can Obama afford to expend his personal and political capital in the NSG for rewarding one of the worst proliferators with a nuclear deal, especially when he is trying to sell the concept of 'Global Zero' to rest of the world? There are likely to be many NSG countries that will oppose such a deal for Pakistan, more so because there is very little economic incentive for these countries in terms of selling civilian nuclear equipment to the Pakistanis.

In the case of India, the prospect of lucrative contracts for setting up nuclear power plants was a huge attraction for some of the important nuclear suppliers to push through the Indian deal. But given the state of Pakistan's economy, the prospect of getting any sort of return from investment is next to negligible. Add to this the generally hostile environment towards Westerners, and the spread of Islamist terrorism throughout the country. Under these circumstances, there is hardly any other country or company that will want to sell nuclear equipment or set up a nuclear plant in Pakistan, except perhaps for the Chinese, who have larger strategic interests in Pakistan. And, if this is the way things are going to play out, why would the Americans want to give Pakistan a deal which will actually allow the Chinese to eventually replace the US in terms of influence in Pakistan?

Clearly then, there never was any nuclear deal on offer, only a readiness on the part of the US to hear the Pakistani sales pitch for such a deal and that too because the US didn't want to rub the Pakistanis the wrong way at this juncture. The Americans perhaps also wanted to avoid giving wind to the huge anti-American propaganda campaign that has been unleashed in Pakistan, partly by the Islamists but largely by the Pakistan army through 'embedded' media personnel to pressurise the Americans into giving ever more concessions and opening their coffers for Pakistan. In a sense, the Pakistani game-plan has been successful because by creating hype around a possible nuclear deal (which they never expected to come through in the first place), they have managed to pressure the Americans into addressing many of their other strategic, economic and military concerns.

More than the nuclear deal, it is the massive transfers of conventional weapons to the Pakistanis and the other political and diplomatic assurances that the US has made to the Pakistanis that should worry India. By bolstering Pakistan's conventional military capability (not its anti-terror capability) the US has ended up emboldening Pakistan to think that it can once again ratchet up tension with India by brandishing its newly acquired weapons as well as unleashing the jihadist terror groups. The Pakistan army would now be calculating that the US is so beholden to them that it will turn a complete blind eye to the export of terror into India. And in the event of things getting out of hand, the US will pressure India to back off, like it did in the 1980's when the Pakistanis sponsored terrorism in Indian Punjab.

What is more, by feting the Pakistan army chief, the US has done great disservice to the cause of democracy in Pakistan. The Pakistan army will now use rising tension with India to further strengthen its stranglehold over the politics of the country and the civilian politicians will try to curry favour with the military by taking a hard line against India. With history repeating itself in Pakistan, the future of Indo-Pak relations seems rather dismal.

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    <1350 Words>                    30^th March, 2010

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SOFT TALIBAN

 

by

 

SUSHANT SAREEN

 

In what was perhaps a Freudian slip, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, while addressing a public meeting in Lahore expressed surprise over Taliban attacks in Punjab despite the PMLN government sharing the stance of the Taliban of opposing the person and policies of the former dictator Pervez Musharraf and not taking any dictation from the US. Almost on cue, the Taliban issued a statement said that the organisation would stop targeting public and government places in Punjab if the provincial government gave an assurance that the Taliban would not be attacked.

 

Predictably, all hell broke loose after the craven statement of the Punjab 'strongman'. The very next day after the statement, Shahbaz Sharif held a meeting with the Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, where he was reportedly given a dressing down. Clearly, Shahbaz Sharif's remarks were seen to undermine the military operations against the Taliban, sending out wrong signals to the international community, weakening the morale of the people and the armed forces and belittling their sacrifices, exposing the lack of consensus in Pakistan over treating the Taliban as enemies. Worst of all, it appeared as though Sharif had set Punjab apart from other parts of Pakistan.

 

Although Sharif did try to wriggle out of the situation by saying that he had been misquoted and issued a detailed clarification, it did little to assuage the Pakhtun members of parliament who launched a broadside against the PMLN leader. After all, going by Sharif's logic, it was alright for the Taliban to launch attacks in NWFP because the government of that province was following Musharraf's policies and was taking dictation from the US. But in all fairness to him, the double-standards that Shahbaz is being accused of in the context of Taliban attacks on Punjab, are actually quite similar to the double-standards that most Pakistanis adopt in the context of Islamist terrorists striking against other countries and peoples of other religions. Instead of being unequivocal in their condemnation of terrorists and their murderous acts in the name of religion, the general refrain of most people in Pakistan is that the terrorists should go and attack the Americans or the Indians and should spare fellow Muslims. One TV anchor who appears of Aaj TV even went to the extent of saying that the terrorists should be attacking India and Hindus and not Pakistan! Clearly, the public opinion in Pakistan doesn't abhor terrorism per se; it only abhors the terrorism that affects it directly. It is kosher for them if hundreds of people are massacred in Mumbai or thousands in New York.

 

Be that as it may, the episode has once again raised questions over the Sharif brothers Islamist leanings. Their closeness to reactionary and regressive Islamists like Jamaat Islami and the Wahhabi Jamiat Ahle Hadith, and the right-wing, conservative ideological positions that the PMLN takes are well known as is the desire of Nawaz Sharif to become the Amirul Momineen (something he tried during the fag end of his second term as Prime Minister). After their return from exile, the Sharif's have tried very hard to shake off their reputation of having a proclivity for radical Islam. This they did by taking on the mantle of being the defenders of all things democratic. They have been in the forefront on the issue of independence of judiciary, implementing the Charter of Democracy, undoing all amendments to the constitution made by the former military dictator, and taking a strong position against army intervention in politics. But the mask is wearing thin, especially after Shahbaz Sharif scurried to explain himself to the army chief – so much for the new found democratic values of the Sharifs and their 'resolve' to not allow the army to interfere in politics!

 

Not surprisingly, the detractors of the Sharif's were quick to latch on to his slip-up. Addressing a lecture in Seattle, Gen Musharraf called Nawaz Sharif a closet Taliban. Closer home, the Punjab governor, Salman Taseer, said Shahbaz is a true heir of Gen. Zia, while a senior PPP leader in Punjab called the PMLN 'the soft face of Taliban' and demanded that the party be put on a UN watch-list. In NWFP, there was a furore in the provincial assembly over Shahbaz's remarks. MQM supremo, Altaf Husain too did not spare Shahbaz and said that it appears that Shahbaz doesn't consider other provinces a part of Pakistan and wants Taliban to carry out attacks in Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan.

 

The fact of the matter remains that notwithstanding self-serving condemnation of Taliban for public and political consumption, the PMLN continues to adopt an ambivalent attitude towards the Islamists. So much so that Shahbaz Sharif is not even willing to accept that there is something called the Punjabi Taliban. According to reports, he has even refused to accept the information given to him during a special meeting of the federal cabinet that it was indeed the Punjabi Taliban who were behind the spate of terrorist attacks in the province. He kept insisting that the "Punjabi Taliban could not do it as no such league of terrorist existed in his province". Not to be left behind, the Punjab law minister, who was recently involved in a controversy after he was seen openly moving around and soliciting the support of the banned Sunni extremist outfit, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) during the recently concluded by-elections in Jhang, criticised the use of the term Punjabi Taliban since it links militants with a province or a community.

 

The existence of the Punjabi Taliban is however undeniable and the huge cache of arms and explosives – nearly 8500 kgs – that were recovered in Islamabad and Lahore are proof enough of the extensive network of Islamist militants in the Punjab. The ANP has been crying hoarse for a long time now that the problem of terrorism in Punjab was in fact making the situation worse in NWFP. A large number of the militants fighting in NWFP and FATA are believed to be Punjabis. The Punjab is not only a fertile recruiting ground for the militants but also provides financial support, and sanctuary to the Taliban. While earlier it was believed that the Taliban phenomenon is limited to South Punjab, there is now increasing evidence that in fact the Taliban are present all over Punjab.

 

Given that the spread of radicalism is now a pan-Pakistan phenomenon, it would be natural to suppose that the efforts to curb the activities of the Islamists and crackdown on their networks would be undertaken with equal vigour in all the provinces of the country. Not so, as is apparent from the attitude of the Punjab chief minister and law minister. This is now fueling resentment especially in NWFP, more so after reports that Pakhtuns all over Punjab were being singled out and harassed and apprehended by the law enforcement agencies. Cutting across party lines, Pakhtun lawmakers have accused the Punjab government of victimising innocent Pakhtuns. If this feeling grows, then it is bound to poison relations between different ethnic groups and put tremendous strain on Pakistan's federal structure.

 

The tragedy of Pakistan is that rather than realising the folly of using Jihad as an instrument of state policy, the ruling establishment (civilian and military) is once again slipping back into the jihad mode. While the Pakistan army is working overtime to place its taliban proxies in Kabul and reactivating groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba to strike against India, Pakistani politicians like Shahbaz Sharif are trying to appease the Islamists by openly proclaiming that their policies are in conjunction with the demands of the taliban. Clearly, if this trend is not reversed soon, no force on earth will be able to stop Pakistan's descent into chaos.

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    < 1290 Words >                    22^nd March, 2010

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FORGET P2P, FOCUS ON E&E

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

One abiding feature of India's Pakistan policy has been the immense faith that has been put in store of what is often called People-to-People (P2P) contacts between Indians and Pakistanis. Despite there being no empirical evidence to support the efficacy of this policy, Indian policy makers – hawks and doves alike – have persisted in trying to push for and expand the scope of P2P contacts with Pakistan. But the experience of the last six decades suggests that the P2P policy that India has been following has proved quite ineffective in changing Pakistanis' perception of India, and has not yielded any significant dividend in terms of building influence and stakes among Pakistani society and polity.

The primary reason for this is that India's P2P policy has been targeted at the wrong set of people in Pakistan. Instead of P2P contacts, India needs to concentrate on building linkages, leverages and stakes among the Pakistani elite and establishment (E&E). This is likely to be far more effective in achieving India's policy objectives than any goodwill that India hopes to earn or impression it seeks to make on people who are powerless to change the dynamics of Indo-Pak relations. Given the realities of Pakistan's power structure, it is futile to expect that pressure from below will be able to influence the behaviour, attitude and decisions of the Pakistani E&E. In Pakistan's case, the opposite is true: influence on the E&E will automatically lead to P2P.

Quite aside the fact that centuries of P2P contacts between those who are today known as Indians and Pakistanis did nothing to prevent the holocaust in 1947, there is a very big chasm between the purpose of promoting P2P and its practise. Much of the clamour for greater P2P contacts really has less to do with the 'ordinary people' and more to do with the 'beautiful people' (businessmen, NGOs, media persons, professionals like lawyers and doctors, and political and social activists) who are nothing if not a part of the E&E. Indeed, when the Indian government talks of P2P, it too is implicitly propagating greater interaction between the 'beautiful' people who constitute the cream of society.

The problem is that the manner in which the Indian government conducts its policy, especially its visa policy, on Pakistan leads to quite the opposite result than what is intended. It effectively places obstacles in the path of people whose antecedents are well established and who not only don't pose any threat to India but can in fact serve as advocates of India in Pakistan and therefore need to be cultivated. But try inviting a well-known Pakistani academic, journalist, businessman, retired general or bureaucrat, and you will be put through a bureaucratic wringer that you will regret ever having thought of doing something so stupid. And it's become worse now with the new visa rules which require clearance from a handful of ministries which is either never given or given so late that the conference, seminar or business meeting would have ended.

At the same time over 100,000 visas are issued every year to Pakistanis whose antecedents are unverifiable. While an overwhelming majority of these 100,000 Pakistanis are neither terrorists nor India-haters and are just ordinary people belonging to divided families, the possibility cannot be ruled out of many an agent provocateurs and jihadists slipping into India by pretending to visit their non-existent relatives.

Clearly, instead of giving 100,000 visas every year to a mass of people who really don't count for anything in the power structure of Pakistan, India needs to adopt a more liberal policy towards the E&E, a policy that is designed to create a vested interest that serves as a pro-India constituency in Pakistan. The driving principle of this policy should be a sophisticated version of the carrot-and-stick approach which puts into place a system that rewards elements favourable to India and imposes costs on elements inimical to India. This means using India's soft-power – Bollywood, higher education, medical facilities, business opportunities, economic assistance, infrastructure projects, green-field investments etc. – as an effective instrument to attract Pakistani E&E and effect an insidious change in their perception and attitude towards India. At the same time, India needs to have an array of coercive instruments to penalise anti-India elements in Pakistan.

It is important however to compartmentalise the Pakistani E&E into two broad categories – statists and non-statists. The statists includes the military-bureaucratic establishment (serving and retired), big business, top politicians, big landowners, media barons, and 'embedded' journalists; the non-statists comprises the NGOs, social and political activists, a section of lawyers, non-embedded journalists, anti-establishment politicians, actors, artistes, musicians etc. Until now, Indian's have generally interacted with the latter category and given their opinions and views a degree of importance that is somewhat overstated. Worse, Indians have tended to propose, even formulate policy, on the basis of its interaction with this very vocal, if well-meaning but ineffectual, minority in Pakistan.

While links with the non-statists do serve a purpose and need to be maintained, it is imperative for India to build links – at both official and unofficial levels – with the statists. One right contact in Pakistan's power structure can deliver far more than a thousand civil society activists or a million ordinary Pakistanis ever can. Take for instance Nawaz Sharif during his second stint as prime minister. The Indian government managed to lure Nawaz Sharif in 1998-99 by buying sugar from his mills, something that gave Nawaz Sharif a stake in trying to resolve matters with India. Call it bribery or call it a trade concession, it was a pretty effective tool in roping Nawaz Sharif in.

There is also the case of General Pervez Musharraf. Once he understood the need for dealing with India, everyone else in the state structure fell in line even if they did not agree with what Musharraf was trying to do. The bilateral relations improved within weeks and remained the best that they have been in living memory till Musharraf was in power. There was a boom in E&E contacts with all varieties of delegations from both sides crossing the borders practically on a daily basis.

What many in India had thought at that time to be a paradigm change in Pakistani mindset was really nothing more than the Pakistani establishment following a liberal policy on India, a cue that the Pakistani people followed. But the moment Musharraf's successor in the GHQ took a dim view of these interactions, attitudes changed and everything stopped practically overnight. All the euphoria and all the solemn talk of commitment to the peace process by media personnel and civil society activists went through the window.

It is certainly not the case that Nawaz Sharif or Musharraf had become Indian lackeys, or had sold out to India. Far from it, they both had their own idea of how they could deal with India. But the crucial point is that India had made contact and engaged with the real power wielders in Pakistan and it is this that paid the dividends. Once Nawaz and Musharraf started to deal with India, they became amenable to move away from their stated positions and given their position in the power structure they were both able to ensure that even the naysayers fell in line.

This then is the model that India needs to adopt if it actually wants to break the logjam with Pakistan. Anything else will amount to nothing more than a talking shop and some more pappi-jhappi shows.

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    <1250 Words>                    10^th March, 2010

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