tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-99616332024-02-28T07:39:06.039-08:00Analyzing PakistanAnalyzing Pakistan, and sometimes even IndiaSushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-82016807484122946452016-01-09T04:22:00.001-08:002016-01-09T04:22:30.971-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>PERFIDY IN PATHANKOT<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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By<o:p></o:p></div>
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SUSHANT SAREEN<o:p></o:p></div>
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Grand
diplomatic gestures can certainly play a big role in breaking logjams between
countries, provided you are dealing with a normal country. Since Pakistan
doesn’t quite fit the bill of a normal country by any stretch of imagination,
the extremely unconventional and bold gambit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to
‘drop in’ on his Pakistani counterpart in Lahore was always fraught with risk.
And as the Pakistani perfidy unfolded in Pathankot, it became clear that what
was always being feared – a stab in the back – had come to pass. Of course,
that Pathankot happened within a week of the PM’s stopover in Lahore is quite breath-taking
in terms of the audacity of betrayal. But this too is true to Pakistani pattern
– remember how within weeks, the clouds of hope and optimism that arose after
the Lahore Bus diplomacy of Prime Minister Vajpayee came crashing down on the
cliffs of Kargil?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Frankly,
even though a big terror attack was always on the cards after the flurry of
meeting between Indian and Pakistani leaders – Paris, Bangkok, Islamabad,
Lahore – that it would happen so soon did come as a bit of a surprise. The
timing is important because if this attack took a few weeks, even months, to
prepare, it means that even as the smiles and handshakes were taking place, the
Pakistanis were sharpening their knives to stick in India’s back – Kargil 2.0?
Alternatively, if the visit of Mr Modi was the provocation, then the fact that
the Pakistani terrorists and their handlers have the capability to launch such
a major attack within a week of the visit should set alarm bells ringing, nay shrieking,
in the Indian security establishment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
Perhaps, the
‘spoilers’ were seriously spooked by the somewhat surreal bonhomie that was on
display and thought that the longer they took to sabotage the engagement
process, the more difficult it will become. Strangely enough, even though
everyone is talking about the ‘spoilers’, no one in any position of authority
has so far taken the trouble to identify who these guys are. All sorts of
alibis are being offered – ‘rogue elements’, ‘enemies of humanity’, and what
not. Again, nothing new here. After 26/11, the UPA persisted with the fiction
of ‘non-state actors’ and ‘elements within the Pakistani state’ being
responsible for that act of mass murder, just so that some space was left for
re-engaging the Pakistanis. This despite the fact that it was quite clear that
that attack wasn’t possible without the active involvement of the Pakistani
military establishment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
Clearly, like
Mumbai in 2008, Pathankot in 2016 is inconceivable without the connivance,
complicity and even cooperation of the Pakistani military establishment. The
nature of attack, as well as the target – Air Force base – leaves little doubt about
the involvement of the dirty tricks department of the Pakistani state. It is,
of course, entirely possible that details of the plot were not shared with some
people in the top echelons of the Pakistani establishment. If so, it still
doesn’t mean that this was a rogue operation. Information about such operations
is shared only on a need-to-know basis. More importantly, officials and leaders
are often kept out of the loop so that they can appear genuine in their denials
when they meet their interlocutors from other countries. In any case, we only
fool ourselves by drawing a distinction between ‘state’ and ‘non-state’ actors,
civilian and military establishments, ‘rogues’ and ‘regulars’. They are all one
and the same and play good-cop-bad-cop as the situation demands.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
Even though
India keeps talking about what it will do in the event of ‘another 26/11’, it
is highly unlikely that the Pakistanis will repeat 26/11 or the Parliament
attack. But Pakistan will continue to carry out high impact attacks to keep
testing and probing India’s resolve and preparedness, as also the threshold of
tolerance. In the case of Pathankot, the attack could also be a test to check
India’s sincerity and commitment in re-engaging Pakistan. An even more
sinister, serious, and scary angle to not just the Pathankot, but also the
Gurdaspur attack a few months earlier, is that both these attacks were a
qualitative jump in what they could have resulted in. In Gurdaspur, if the
bombs on the railway track had blown up a train there would have been mass
casualties, and if in Pathankot, a few aircraft or choppers had been damaged or
destroyed, it would have literally pushed the two countries to the brink of
war. So is Pakistan deliberately trying to provoke war?<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Modi
government confronts a Hobson’s choice: walking out of the talks will appear a
churlish, even knee-jerk, reaction and is unlikely to get much traction
internationally, and will hardly be a punishment for Pakistan; but going ahead
with the talks comes with its own complications, not just political but also
security. The Pakistanis might well come to the conclusion that its business as
usual and henceforth talks and terror will go together. Therefore, not doing
anything is also not an option. The challenge for the Modi government will be
to use the talks as a test of Pakistan’s sincerity and hold its feet to fire on
the issue of terrorism. Hollow commitments and pro forma condemnatory statements
won’t be enough; visible action must be seen to be happening. And if Pakistan
doesn’t deliver, as is more likely, then to use it’s perfidy as a tool to not
just disengage but also change India’s tired old template of talks followed by
no talks with a more robust, hard-hitting, unrelenting, uncompromising policy
to inflict punishment on Pakistan and its proxies. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-50999497001067234452016-01-09T04:21:00.001-08:002016-01-09T04:21:37.871-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>THE TALKS TRAP vs THE TALKS TACTIC</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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By<o:p></o:p></div>
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SUSHANT SAREEN<o:p></o:p></div>
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In
a funny sort of way, Pakistan is a prime example of what is often called
continuity in foreign policy, and also in domestic politics. Every government,
regardless of which party it belongs to, falls back on the same old template of
remaining engaged with Pakistan and dialoguing with them even though they know
nothing much is likely to come out of it. And every opposition, regardless of
the party, takes a more strident stand and accuses the government of the day of
being soft on Pakistan. In the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the
Pathankot air base, which came within a week of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
very bold move to informally drop in on Nawaz Sharif in Lahore, Indian foreign
policy and domestic politics is following the familiar trajectory – the ruling
party defending its outreach to Pakistan, and the opposition excoriating the
government policy towards Pakistan.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Strangely,
even the logic used and alibis given to defend the government policy has a
continuity to it, albeit with minor changes in the terminologies used. For
instance, there is the whole nonsense about ‘we can choose friends but not
neighbours’ and that ‘we must have good relations with neighbours’. The thought
is nice, in theory at least, but doesn’t quite take into account what sort of a
neighbour you have and what that neighbours concept of relations with his
neighbours is. It is, of course, India’s great and abiding misfortune to have
an ‘international migraine’ (to use former US Secretary of State Madeline
Albright’s evocative phrase) like Pakistan as its neighbour, even more so
because in Pakistan the neighbour is often considered an enemy and the
philosophy guiding relations with neighbours is that you must bring down the
walls of the neighbour’s house even if you come under! Surely, the Punjabis in
Mr Modi’s cabinet – the Finance Minister and External Affairs minister – are
aware of this. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Then
there are the alibis. After Kargil, the then NDA government continued with the
fiction that Nawaz Sharif wasn’t taken in the loop on what the Pakistan army
was up to. Later, it became very clear that while all the operational details
may not have been shared with Nawaz Sharif, he was aware of the army’s plans to
make an ingress into India and hold territory which would force India out of
Siachen and might even give Pakistan a leg up in Kashmir. After 26/11, the UPA
government came up with the term ‘non-state actors’ to absolve the Pakistani
state (which was clearly hand in glove with the terrorists) of responsibility
so that the engagement process is not damaged beyond repair. After Pathankot,
no one in government is ready to name the real culprits. Instead terms like
‘rogue elements’ and ‘enemies of humanity’ are being used. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Quite aside the
fact that if we are not even willing to call a spade a spade, and rather than
feel embarrassed or feel that it will spoil the atmospherics, use our
candidness as a leverage in talks, we prefer to provide even more alibis. Even
though the Pakistanis insist that the civilian government and the all-powerful
military are on the same page as far as India is concerned, we insist they are
not! This is almost like what the Pakistanis do with the Taliban: the Taliban
claim responsibility for an attack and the Pakistanis keep saying that it
wasn’t done by the Taliban and that just because the Taliban have claimed
responsibility doesn’t mean they actually did the act. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
Clearly, India
makes a mistake by making a distinction between the civil and military, or between
the Pakistan army and ISI. This gives Pakistan the wriggle room to play
good-cop-bad-cop and doesn’t really give any comfort to India. After all, if
the elected Prime Minister of Pakistan is a non-entity, then no purpose will be
served by talking to him; and if he is the Chief Executive of the state, and he
is as interested in a rapprochement with India as he claims, then he must prove
this by taking action against the so-called spoilers, especially since it is
inconceivable that an attack like Pathankot could have happened without the
connivance and complicity of the Pakistan army (which includes the ISI). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
There is also
the myth that successive Indian governments have subscribed to, which is that
talks can become a tool to tamper down, even end, terrorism being exported from
Pakistan. The track record of talks indicates otherwise. In fact, every time
India has taken the initiative to open talks with Pakistan, terrorism has been
ramped up; and every time talks have been broken off by an angry India, incidents
of terrorism or military adventurism have fallen. The 1999 Lahore bus diplomacy
was followed by Kargil incursions; the 2001 Agra meeting was followed by the
attack on J&K assembly and then the Parliament; the 2004 peace process saw
the Mumbai serial train blasts (over 160 dead) in 2006 and then 26/11 in 2008; the
Sharm-el-Sheikh meeting in 2009 was followed by the German Bakery blast in 2010
and Zaveri Bazaar blasts in 2011; after Ufa, we had Gurdaspur and Udhampur; and
now after Lahore, there is Pathankot. An in-house study by the External Affairs
ministry revealed that between 2004 and 2008 when relations between India and
Pakistan were supposedly better than they had ever been in decades, there were
18 major terror attacks with a Pakistani fingerprint on them; In the four years
after 2008 (26/11), there were only about half a dozen big attacks. Ergo, not
talking to Pakistan keeps Indians safer than talking to Pakistan.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
But with the PM
having gone out on a limb and invested a lot of political and diplomatic
capital to engage Pakistan in an attempt (the umpteenth one actually) to ‘turn
the course of history’, Pathankot confronts India with a Hobson’s choice: if
they break off the dialogue as a reaction to Pathankot, it will appear
churlish, especially since everyone expected the ‘spoilers’ to try and sabotage
the talks. Even the international community (for whatever it is worth) will not
show any understanding for India’s predicament; on the other hand, if the
government persists with the dialogue, it will have serious domestic political
repercussions and worse, it will be seen in Pakistan as a sign that India has
reconciled to talks and terror going side by side. In other words, Pakistan
will see it as a license to continue with business as usual, which is one of
the reasons for the attack. The Pakistanis are testing both India’s seriousness
in engaging Pakistan, as well as India’s resolve to now allow terrorism going
unanswered. This means India can’t be seen to be not doing anything. But what
can it do is the billion dollar question. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
Perhaps, for now
the only option before the government is to carry on with the talks and when
the foreign secretary visits Pakistan to discuss modalities he can insist on
visible action by Pakistan against the people responsible for Pathankot. If the
Pakistan's deliver (unlikely) India can go on with the engagement; if they
stonewall, India can get out of this desultory dialogue.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-40273904458300571642016-01-09T04:20:00.001-08:002016-01-09T04:20:49.833-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>PAKISTAN: ENIGMA OF ENGAGEMENT ENSNARES MODI</b></div>
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By<o:p></o:p></div>
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SUSHANT SAREEN<o:p></o:p></div>
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If
there is one thing that distinguishes Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s style of
diplomacy from that of his predecessors, it is unpredictability. His highly
personalised and unconventional foreign policy initiatives have left the army
of Delhi’s ‘know-it-all, seen-it-all’ analysts and journalists watching with ‘shock
and awe’ as he pulls one surprise after another in the diplomatic domain.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in his dealings with Pakistan. Equally, no
other place has been as impervious to his go-getting attitude than Pakistan. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
Clearly, after
the Pathankot terrorist attack, which came within a week of Mr Modi’s extremely
bold move of ‘dropping in’ impromptu on his Pakistani counterpart in Lahore to
wish him on his birthday, even Mr Modi would have been left scratching his head
over how to handle a country like Pakistan with which nothing – neither estrangement
nor engagement, neither aggression nor amicability – seems to work. All of Mr
Modi’s predecessors were confronted with the same enigma, and bowed out of
office without finding an answer to India’s Pakistan problem. And if recent
events are anything to go by, Mr Modi’s Pakistan gambit is unlikely to fare any
better.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Since
assuming office, Mr Modi has demonstrated that he is not afraid to swim against
the tide. This has left practically everyone guessing as to what he will do.
Everyone expected him to be resentful of the West which had treated him as a
pariah, but he went out of his way to befriend the West; everyone thought he
will be soft on Nepal, but he played hardball when the Nepalese tried to play
too clever by half on the issue of the constitution; and everyone thought he
will take a very hard line on Pakistan, but he has gone out of his way to reach
out to Pakistan. The blow-hot-blow-cold state of ties between India and
Pakistan – four initiatives in the last eighteen months interspersed with war
of words (bilaterally and in the UN) and aggressive posturing on the ground,
especially along the LoC in J&K – has come under severe criticism for
inconsistency, even lack of clarity and coherence, in policy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
And yet, Mr Modi
has persevered. He hasn’t let either the pressure of media or even that of
public opinion and the political opposition detract him from whatever he is
trying to do with Pakistan. Of course, what exactly he is trying to do remains
fuzzy, because once you cut through the cosmetics (which are new), the sum and
substance of his effort is no different from that of his predecessors. To be
sure, Mr Modi has managed to wrest control of the narrative by doing the
unpredictable – calling up Nawaz Sharif when least expected and calling on him
when it was beyond anyone’s imagination. But controlling the optics is only
part of the equation and doesn’t quite address the question of addressing the
substantive and apparently intractable issues that bedevil relations between
the two countries. This is important because there is nothing in the public
domain to indicate how these issues are proposed to be tackled. What compromise
formula has been worked out, what will be the give-and-take, and will Mr Modi
and his Pakistani counterpart be able to sell this formula (if at all it
exists) to their peoples, political opposition and, most importantly, their
establishments.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
The other
problem is that while Mr Modi can manage things on the Indian side, there isn’t
much he has in his store to influence Pakistan in the way he wants. This means
that while Mr Modi might believe that optics is substance and if the optics can
be managed long enough, the substantive issues will become irrelevant and
therefore amenable to solution, the Pakistani side might be on a totally different
wavelength and would want to keep giving rude reminders to India that it
continues to wield a gun and occasionally isn’t averse to firing it on India.
In other words, while Mr Modi might have felt that the optics – Lahore visit –
will bind Pakistan’s hands and make it difficult for them to spoil the atmospherics,
the Pakistanis might come to the conclusion that Mr Modi’s optics strategy has
in fact tied his hands and will make it difficult and deeply embarrassing for
him to go into a sulk if they do what they do – Pathankot. In a sense, this is
precisely what happened in Kargil: India assumed that after both countries went
nuclear and war wasn’t an exercisable option, the path for peace and a grand
reconciliation was open; Pakistan came to the conclusion that because there
could be no war, it opened up space for a Kargil type operation. Ergo, for
Pakistan perversity isn’t an irrational response, but a default response to any
Indian initiative. This lesson of history appears to have been ignored by Mr Modi
in his bold outreach, and inexplicable keenness, to engage with Pakistan.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
Mr Modi must
have known that reaching out to Pakistan was a high risk gamble. If he had
succeeded, he would be hailed globally; but there was far higher probability
that he would fail, in which case he would be condemned and dragged over hot
coals by both his opponents and many of his supporters, more so because his
political rhetoric on Pakistan was at total variance with his diplomatic
initiatives. It is in this sense, Pathankot is not just a litmus test to check
Pakistan’s sincerity and seriousness on wanting a dialogue with India, but also
a test for Mr Modi’s policy on Pakistan. Not doing anything isn’t an option. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
A lot will now
depend on whether the Pakistanis act on the information and intelligence that
has been shared with them. If they do, Mr Modi’s gamble would have paid off and
Pakistani action against terrorists operating against India would effect a
change in the paradigm between the two countries; But given how unlikely it is
that we will see any serious action by Pakistan, even then Mr Modi’s gamble
would have paid off, at least in a small way. He can use Pakistan's perfidy to
good effect with the international community and try and re-build international
pressure on Pakistan on the issue of terrorism. Of course, in the event things
come to such a pass, the Indo-Pak track would be back to square one. But given
Mr Modi’s proclivity to surprise, he might once again do something no one
expects. What that will be is anyone’s guess. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-18641548217732849202011-07-02T23:20:00.000-07:002011-07-02T23:24:10.814-07:00<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b>COPPING OUT OF AFGHANISTAN<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center">By</p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center">SUSHANT SAREEN</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span> </span>US President Barack Obama’s ‘way forward in Afghanistan’ speech should really have been titled ‘way out of Afghanistan’. Leave aside the elegance of Obama’s oratory and his steely resolve to defeat the Al Qaeda and not allow terrorist safe havens from where attacks can be planned and launched against the US and its allies, his drawdown plan – starting July, the US will pull out 10000 troops by end of the year, another 23000 by September next, and after that a steady withdrawal of troops to complete the transition of handing over security to Afghan forces by 2014 – is, in essence, a plan for an orderly retreat from Afghanistan. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">Far from enhancing security in Afghanistan and rest of the world, Obama’s cop out from Afghanistan will effectively reverse the tenuous gains made by the ‘surge’. With the easing of the pressure that was being put on the Al Qaeda/Taliban forces in Afghanistan and their patrons and supporters in Pakistan, there is likely to be yet another resurgence of the Islamists in the Afpak region. What is worse, the resulting rise in Islamist violence will be inversely proportional to the determination of many of their opponents in Afghanistan and Pakistan to stand up and fight against their virulence. This is so not only because some of these purported opponents have always adopted a rather ambivalent attitude towards fighting the Taliban, but also because with the Americans trying to cut deals with the Taliban, it makes a lot more sense to switch loyalties to the perceived winners of the war. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">The entire Obama plan is predicated on a few assumptions about how the situation in Afghanistan will evolve over the next couple of years. The first assumption is that after the killing of Osama bin Laden, the ties that bound the Al Qaeda and Taliban have been greatly loosened. Hence, the UN resolution delinking the Taliban from the Al Qaeda, which the Americans believe will help in pushing the ‘reconciliation process’ forward by giving an incentive to the Taliban to sever their links with the Al Qaeda and join the mainstream. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">The problem with this assumption is that, one, the Taliban consider themselves as the mainstream; two, with the Americans giving the impression of throwing in the towel, there is greater incentive for the Islamists to go for broke rather than enter into power sharing deals, which in any case will be observed more in their violation; three, if even before 9/11, Mullah Omar felt that he couldn’t move against the Al Qaeda, what are the chances that now, after a decade of fighting together against a common enemy, the Taliban will give up the Al Qaeda? If anything, any move by Mullah Omar to break relations with the Al Qaeda could well end up in his being repudiated by his followers, many of whom are far more radicalised today after over a decade of close contact with the Al Qaeda. <span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">The other faulty assumptions implicit in Obama’s speech are: a) peace in Afghanistan is not possible without a political settlement; b) since the drawdown is taking place from a ‘position of strength’, the security situation in Afghanistan will continuously improve, or at least will remain manageable, and the Afghan National Army (ANA) will be able to take over the responsibilities of the ISAF; c) while the US will withdraw the bulk of its troops, it will still maintain a few bases inside Afghanistan which will provide the necessary back up support to the ANA. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">Frankly speaking, the refrain that ‘war is not a solution’ and that ‘talks is the only way out’ is utter nonsense. The fact of the matter is that talks are useful in preventing a war, not in ending a war. Wars are always decided on the battlefield, and in the minds of men. The political settlement reached on the negotiation table reflects nothing but the result achieved on the battlefield, sometimes an outright victory for one side and at other times a stalemate. Of course, there are instances where advantages gained on the battlefield have been lost on the negotiation table – Tashkent 1966 and Shimla 1972 come to mind, where India did not press home the advantage in the fond belief that its magnanimity will make Pakistan give up its compulsive hostility towards India. In the case of Afghanistan, while the war appears to be a stalemate, in reality by suing for peace with the Taliban, the Americans have tacitly conceded defeat, or at least that’s the way the Islamists will see it. Under these circumstances, the chances of any acceptable, much less long lasting, agreement being struck with the Taliban is bit of a pipedream. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">The ‘position of strength’ from which the Americans are starting the drawdown is a somewhat half-baked proposition especially since the drawdown isn’t likely to be accompanied with a concomitant improvement in the security situation. On the contrary, as the US troops withdraw, the Taliban are likely to regain effective control over many of the areas which the Americans abandon. The ANA, which is still a work-in-progress, just doesn’t have the capacity to prevent a Taliban comeback. This brings us to the third assumption i.e. the US will maintain a presence – three or four military bases – in Afghanistan. This is clearly an untenable proposition. Unless the US can rid Afghanistan of the malign influence of the Taliban/Al Qaeda, it will not be able to maintain its bases in Afghanistan.<span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span> </span>Weighed down by political and economic compulsions, perhaps the war in Afghanistan is no longer sustainable for the US. If so, then why prolong the torture for three years, and spend another $ 300 billion on a lost war? It makes more sense to follow Thomas Friedman’s advice – lose early, lose small – and put in place an alternative plan which is cheaper and more effective in controlling the global and regional fallout of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span> </span>Taliban ascendancy in Afghanistan will, no doubt, constitute a major setback to India’s quest for a stable and friendly Afghanistan. But India’s fears of Afghanistan once again becoming a base for terror directed against India are misdirected. This is so because any terrorism emanating from Afghanistan can enter India only through Pakistan, as indeed it did before 9/11. In other words, India’s problem is really Pakistan, not Afghanistan. It is, in fact, the malevolent impact that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan will have on Pakistan that should worry India more than anything else. Far from providing ‘strategic depth’ to Pakistan, Afghanistan will actually become a ‘strategic black hole’ for Pakistan if the Islamists hold sway in that hapless country. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">With the US withdrawal, not only will an already tottering and economically bankrupt Pakistan get militarily sucked in to Afghanistan but will also have to bear the economic burden of an economically unviable Afghanistan. To not put too fine a point on it, Pakistan's descent into failure (or if you will, jihadist utopia) will only hasten when the mess left behind by the Americans falls on its head. At the risk of belabouring the point, India’s problems will really start with Pakistan’s failure. The only hope is that Pakistan realises the folly of its ways and moves resolutely and with sincerity against the Islamists. The problem is that it might already be too late for Pakistan to change course. For India, which will find itself on the frontlines of the post-Afghan withdrawal Global War on Terror, the big challenge will be dealing with Pakistan's transformation from a quasi-jihadist state into a fully jihadist state. <span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">*********************************************************************</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span> </span><1260 Words><span> </span>30<sup>th</sup> June, 2011</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">*********************************************************************</p>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-26291175822719283912011-06-24T15:00:00.000-07:002011-06-24T15:01:15.529-07:00<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> 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mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">NEEDLESS RANTING OVER RANA</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center">By</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center">SUSHANT SAREEN</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Considering that Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistani-origin, Canadian national could face up to 30 years in prison after a Chicago court found him guilty of having links with the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba and plotting a terror attack against a Danish newspaper, the carping noises being heard in India over his acquittal on the charge of facilitating the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai sound somewhat incongruous. Rana being found guilty of involvement in 26/11 would not have made it any easier to punish the real masterminds of that outrage, all of whom are comfortably ensconced in Pakistan, some inside jail from where they are conducting their murderous business and others strutting about freely, making hate speeches against India and praying for the soul of Osama bin Laden in public meetings. Nor for that matter is Rana’s acquittal going to be a setback in bringing to justice those who planned and directed that barbaric attack. To put it quite simply, the Rana trial is not really material to the larger 26/11 case.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">Rana was at best a bit player in 26/11 who ostensibly was motivated by two factors: one, he believed that by helping the ISI spy on India he would be able to make amends for his desertion from the Pakistan Army; and second, he probably thought that aiding the LeT in the massacre of kafirs (infidels) would earn him some <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">sawab (</i>rewards in the afterlife). His being indicted for involvement in the 26/11 attacks was more of an afterthought, because originally he was arrested for being part of a terrorist conspiracy to attack the Danish newspaper that had published caricatures of Prophet Mohammad. It was only the confessional statement of David Headley that implicated Rana in the 26/11 conspiracy. But the corroborative evidence that was required to back Headley’s testimony was just not adequate for a jury to pronounce the guilty verdict on Rana. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">The reaction in India to Rana’s acquittal in 26/11 case has, however, been quite over the top. Not only does it smack of an utter lack of understanding of law and procedure, it is even devoid of basic common sense. It is one thing for Indian officials to express ‘disappointment’ over the Rana’s acquittal, and quite another for them to contemplate filing a charge-sheet against both Rana and Headley. Leave aside the fact that it will be practically impossible to secure the extradition of these two characters, won’t the principle of ‘double jeopardy’ come into play if these two men are to be tried in India on practically the same charges for which they were tried in the US? But let us, for a moment, assume that India does get hold of these two guys and the issue of ‘double jeopardy’ is not applicable. What, pray, is the new evidence that Indian law enforcement agencies have collected against them (which presumably the American prosecutors did not have) that will stand up in a court of law to convict these people in India?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">This is precisely the reason why the reaction of the BJP to Rana’s acquittal sounds silly. In accusing the Manmohan Singh government of not pursuing the case properly in the Chicago court, the BJP seems to have forgotten that Rana and Headley were arrested and prosecuted by the US of its own volition and not because India had pointed these two guys out. India, in fact, became wise to these ‘spotters’ only after the story broke out in the US and information gathered by Indian investigators subsequently about the activities of Rana and Headley contains nothing that adds to the body of evidence collected and presented in court by the US prosecutors. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">If truth be told, had Rana and Headley been tried in India, they would have almost certainly got away scot free. Apart from having gained notoriety as being probably the only country in the world where, after a recent Supreme Court ruling, no action can be taken even against a card carrying member of any terrorist organisation, including Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba, India is also a country which is trying to fight 21<sup>st</sup> Century crime with 19<sup>th</sup> Century laws. No wonder that while Indian investigators have done a fairly good job in collecting intelligence and information about terrorists, they have been unable to translate this into evidence that can stand in a court of law. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">Antiquated laws, poorly resourced law enforcement and security agencies and outdated investigation techniques are in large measure responsible for this state of affairs. Forget about the toothless Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, even in the case of ‘tough’ laws like POTA and TADA, the imagination of the Indian lawmaker starts and stops with making confessions before a designated officer admissible as evidence, a rather problematic proposition particularly if a confession cannot be backed by other corroborating evidence. Therefore, instead of cribbing about Rana’s acquittal on one charge, India should be thankful to the US for two things: one, by giving India access to Headley, it has helped Indian investigators fill in some of the blanks regarding the planning of the 26/11 attacks; and two, it has put away for good two flunkies of the ISI and LeT. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">India’s real interest in Rana’s trial has less to do with seeking punishment for someone who played only a peripheral role in the entire 26/11 episode and more to do with laying bare in a neutral court of law the ISI’s use of terror as an instrument of foreign policy, particularly against India. This has been achieved despite the not-guilty verdict handed down by the US court. By exposing the ISI-LeT nexus in graphic detail, the Rana trial has been an unqualified success for India in terms of propaganda value. What is more, Headley’s testimony only adds more meat to the sensational report filed shortly after 26/11 by the now slain Pakistani journalist, Syed Saleem Shahzad, which revealed that the Mumbai terror plot was originally drawn up by the ISI. While Shahzad claimed that the plan was hijacked by the Al Qaeda, Headley’s testimony makes it clear that the plan was not hijacked but outsourced by the ISI to the LeT. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">Other than the satisfaction of tarnishing the already terrible image of the Pakistan army and ISI before the international community, there is little that will come out of the Rana trial in terms of bringing the guilty of 26/11 to justice. Most Pakistanis have responded to the Chicago trial by going into paroxysms of denial, disingenuously pointing to the unsavoury past of Headley to question his credibility as a prosecution witness. What the Pakistani defenders of the ISI and LeT seem to gloss over is that only dysfunctional and disreputable characters like Headley would get sucked into the terrorist underworld where drug smuggling, gun-running, money laundering and other such criminal activity gets mixed up with state policy and religion to make an explosive cocktail. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:36.0pt">But why blame the Pakistanis when the Indian establishment itself has little interest in pursuing the culprits of 26/11. Sure, there is no dearth of lip-service being paid to bringing the masterminds to justice. Nor is there any slackening of the rhetoric on 26/11. But having resumed the Composite Dialogue process, it is pretty much back to business as usual with Pakistan and all the noise over 26/11 is more the result of political compulsion rather than any conviction on part of the Indian establishment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">*********************************************************************</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><1236 Words><span style="mso-tab-count:6"> </span>14<sup>th</sup> June, 2011</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">*********************************************************************</p>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-63578095272193004852011-06-03T04:17:00.001-07:002011-06-03T04:17:53.927-07:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>PAKISTAN'S TRAJECTORY: Beginning of the end?</strong><br /> </p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Hardly anyone will dispute that May 2011 has been a <em>mensis horribilus</em> for Pakistan. The events that transpired during the month – the US raid to kill Osama bin Laden and the subsequent pressure on Pakistan to start delivering on its commitments in the war on terror, the massive spike in retaliatory terror attacks that culminated in the fidayeen attack on the naval airbase, PNS Mehran, and the brutal murder – all fingers point to the ISI – of journalist Saleem Shehzad who exposed the infiltration by Al Qaeda into the Pakistani armed forces – have shaken to the core the state and society of Pakistan. More significantly, these developments could force the Pakistani political and military establishment to make some profound choices and take some critical decisions that will determine the future course of the country. The portents and prognosis is, however, not very good because no matter what choices and decisions are made, things are likely to get much worse before they get better, if at all.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> The problem for Pakistan today is that it is caught in multiple binds that infinitely complicate the selection of the options before the country. The national economy is on the verge of a meltdown. Running on empty, the economy is heavily dependent on foreign aid, which is either not coming or is trickling in albeit with political riders and economic reform conditionalities which the Pakistani authorities are finding difficult to accept and impossible to reject. There is a deep disconnect between the Islamist inclinations of the people and influential sections of the establishment on the one hand, and the compulsions of the state to be seen to be combating the inroads being made by the Islamists, on the other. Enormous pressure is being mounted on Pakistan from the US to end its double-game in the war on terror and take 'specific actions' and 'decisive steps'. These include launching a military operation in North Waziristan against some of Pakistan's 'strategic assets' like the Haqqani network and assisting the US in apprehending or eliminating four or five of the most wanted Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists. At the same time, the state is being challenged as never before by the Islamist terrorists who have mounted spectacular attacks all over the country. There are fears that compliance with US demands could result in ferocious retaliation by the terror networks, who have not only infiltrated the security services but also enjoy sympathy and support from a cross-section of Pakistani society. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The chasm between the effete and inefficient civilian government and the people is increasing. Even as the opposition is growing restive and inching towards forcing the government out of office, public confidence in democracy, parliamentary system, and most of all on the states institutions has plummeted. Unlike the past, when the people looked towards the army as saviours, the Abbotabad operation, the PNS Mehran attack and now the assassination of Saleem Shehzad by ISI thugs have pulled down the army and ISI's stock to an all time low. Worse, the military is no longer the dominant force that it was in the past. The army's dominance is being questioned like never before by the civilians and its armed might is being challenged every day by the Islamist militant groups. Ethnic separatism has reared its head once again in Balochistan and is simmering in Sindh. Sectarian tensions remain high. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Under these circumstances, there are broadly three options before the Pakistani state: one, clean up its act; two, continue to simultaneously ride, for as long as possible, the two boats of fighting terrorism and supporting it at the same time; and three, become a jihadist state. Each of these options will have internal and external repercussions on the Pakistani state. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> The first option – comprehensive clean-up – is perhaps the most difficult in the short run, but also the only option that holds any chance for Pakistan eventually emerging as a normal country in the comity of nations. This will involve a complete reversal of all the destructive policies followed by the Pakistani state since it came into existence. In other words, a complete overhaul of social, political, economic, religious and cultural structure that currently exists. Apart from a ruthless purge of the Islamist terror groups of all hues (good and bad jihadists), establishing civilian supremacy over the military will be a sine qua non. All foreign, defence and security policies will have to be determined by the civilian leadership. The detoxification of education system, radical political and economic reforms, massive investment in the social sector (health, education, sanitation etc) institutional reform, including downsizing the military and civilian control over the intelligence agencies, normalisation of relations with India by getting of the Kashmir hobby horse, will have to be undertaken. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>No doubt, this is a very tall order which even functional states would find difficult to implement. The capacity of a fragile and dysfunctional state like Pakistan to change course is extremely doubtful. To be sure, this will not be possible without enormous foreign assistance for at least 10-15 years. But even with a Marshall Plan like aid programme of tens of billions of dollars, there are no guarantees if Pakistan will be able to pull through and deliver on all of the above. Despite the difficulties that lie on this path, it offers the Pakistan army a golden opportunity, and perhaps the only opportunity, to prove its patriotism and loyalty to the nation rather than its corporate interests.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Given that the clean-up option sounds like 'mission impossible', there will be a natural temptation to take an easier option, i.e. the two boats option. Essentially, this will involve Pakistan continuing pretty much along the path it has followed for so long viz. play both sides of every game, especially in the war on terror. On the one hand, Pakistan will make efforts to combat jihadists inimical to the interests of the Pakistani state, and make a pretence of fighting jihadists with a global agenda in order to keep on the right side of the West and keep the economic and military aid flowing. On the other hand, it will also keep the jihad infrastructure intact and let the jihad factory function, albeit in a controlled manner, so that it continues to churn out 'strategic assets' which function as instruments of state policy. The advantage of this policy is that it will satisfy the jihadist urgings of the people and establishment, obviate the need for any major structural reform in the political, economic or social sphere (thereby avoiding the turmoil that accompanies such reform), keep alive its USP – nuisance value of being a nuclear-armed 'international migraine' that the international community will be compelled to bail out all the time. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The downside of the 'two boats' option is that it might well have run its course and cannot be played for much longer now because the inherent conflicts and contradictions that it entails have started coming to the fore. Simply put, this option will do nothing to arrest Pakistan's inexorable slide towards the abyss – the economy will remain in an ICU, the polity will remain unstable, the society will continue to be radicalised, the haemorrhaging of the states vitality won't stop, the power and influence of the Islamist terror groups will continue to rise while that of the state will decline. This option will only delay state failure, but not for very long. If anything, it will make the state so vulnerable that it won't be able to withstand any major shock and will collapse like a house of cards. A historical parallel is the fall of the Mughal empire to the Sikh armies which took over Lahore without firing a single shot. In the current case, it will be the Islamists who are the most likely candidates to play the role that the Sikhs played in the 18<sup>th</sup> Century. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The third option is a fast-forwarded version of the 'two-boats' option i.e. the Pakistani state decides to become a jihadist state by design rather than by default. Instead of risking a civil war by confronting the jihadists or undergoing the slow and torturous process of losing control to the jihadists, the Pakistani establishment could well decide to defy the Americans and close ranks with their Islamist brethren for the 'glory of Islam'. This means that the Pakistanis will end cooperation in the war on terror, block the supply routes of ISAF forces in Afghanistan, forbid all drone strikes and other offensive actions by the Americans inside Pakistan, openly lend support to the Taliban in Afghanistan and enter into some sort of power sharing arrangement with the Pakistani Taliban groups that for some time at least keeps the Pakistan army in the driving seat. The fiction of democracy, civilian supremacy, rule of law and other such highfaluting concepts will end. Shariah law, as defined by the most reactionary mullahs, will be imposed. Shias and other sectarian groups will be declared non-Muslim. Women will be confined to homes. In short, an Islamic Emirate of Pakistan, which will be a clone of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, will replace the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>There will of course be severe repercussions of this because defying the Americans and the West is the easier part; it is the day after which is the difficult part, because that is when Pakistanis will realise the difference between smoking grass (which probably has induced the nationwide hallucination of being a destroyer of great empires) and eating grass (a taste for which the Pakistani palate has still to cultivate). Defiance of the West is predicated on support from China and the 'brotherly' Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran etc. But this could well be a pipedream because neither China nor the Muslim world can really replace the West. Nor are they likely to back Pakistan if it means jeopardising their ties with the West. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Once the initial euphoria of having taken on the Americans and defying them is over, the existential crises will have to be handled especially since there is a strong possibility of global sanctions being imposed on Pakistan, isolating it completely. If this happens, the economy will collapse. Trade, investment, and business will come to a grinding halt. There will be massive shortages of fuel, energy and food. The only thing in surplus will be the pride of having reclaimed sovereignty and finally having achieved a truly Islamic dispensation. It is of course another matter that there will be far greater violence, destruction and devastation that will result from the jihadi option as compared to the clean-up option. But that will be in the future, something that is always at a discount in Pakistan where policies and strategies are made from the perspective of tiding over today's problems rather than anticipating the effects of wrong policies in the months and years ahead. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Except for the 'clean-up' option, the collapse of the Pakistani state as currently constituted is inevitable. While it is impossible to predict how the Pakistani cookie will crumble – will it split along ethnic lines, will it implode, will it give way to warlordism, will the Al Qaeda/Taliban takeover, or will it be a combination of all of these – one thing is certain: when it comes, the collapse will be sudden, practically overnight. What will be the trigger is again not clear. It could be a split in the army with a couple of Corps Commanders or senior generals deciding to take over power or challenge the GHQ; it could be an ordinary Tunisia-type incident that sets into motion a domino that brings down the edifice of the state; it could be a natural calamity; it could be another Abbotabad type unilateral action by the US either to snatch and kill another high-value target or to retaliate against a terror attack on US soil by terror groups based in Pakistan; it could be a US withdrawal from the region which emboldens the Islamists to try and capture power in Pakistan; it could be the devastating effect of another global economic meltdown; in short, it could pretty much be anything. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>While India needs to prepare to handle the fallout of a 'failed' Pakistan, even before such a cataclysmic development occurs, there will be serious threats to India's security. The more conditions in Pakistan deteriorate, the more the Pakistani military and political establishment sees power slip out of its hands and the more the Pakistan army loses the confidence and trust of the people, the greater the temptation to indulge in adventurism against India to make the people close ranks behind the military in Pakistan. The adventurism could be another Kargil, another Mumbai, another Parliament-type attack, or even a new and even horrific terror attack ('dirty bomb'?). India also needs to be alive to the perverse mindset in large sections of the elite and establishment of Pakistan that has resolved to take down India if Pakistan is going down the tube. To be able to guard against any such eventuality, India needs to put in place systems to minimise, if not prevent, the damage that is likely to be caused. What is more, India needs to work out its counter-responses, political, economic, military and diplomatic. This should have been done yesterday. But even if it is done today, it should be okay. One thing India doesn't have is the luxury of time because tomorrow might be too late. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><2240 Words> 3<sup>rd</sup> June, 2011<br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-18593621272758033042011-05-27T05:47:00.001-07:002011-05-27T05:47:21.342-07:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>PAKISTAN IN A FREE FALL, ALBEIT IN SLOW MOTION</strong><br /> </p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>Sushant Sareen<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> For a people who consider themselves as the true legatees of the Mughal empire, the only apt historical parallel to describe the state of Pakistan today is the atrophying Mughal empire after the death of Pakistan's favourite Great Mughal, Aurangzeb. Just as Aurangzeb sought to cement the empire by using fundamentalist Islam, but ended up spawning a million mutinies which sapped the vitality of the realm and ultimately destroyed the empire, so too in the case of Pakistan which promoted a virulent version of Islam to fuse the nation but which is now threatening to devour the Pakistani state. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>During the last days of the Mughal empire, court intrigues to become emperor or wazir or a noble were the order of the day, and this despite the fact that the empire, or what was left of it, was surviving on the sufferance of either adventurers or emerging powers like the Marathas and the Afghans. Just as the last Mughals used to depend on external intervention to secure their positions in the court, Pakistani leaders today are more than willing to invite intervention by outside powers – USA, UK, Saudi Arabia, China – for gaining or retaining political power. Even when hostile armies were on the borders and the very survival of the throne and empire was at stake, the later Mughals made no effort to forge unity to confront the invaders and marauders. Instead, all energy was focused on the getting one up on rivals. No one was willing to give any quarter to his rivals, or desist from brinkmanship, or even put one's own self-interest on the back-burner until the peril of invasion was tackled and the authority of the empire re-established. So it is in today's Pakistan. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>There is a very serious danger of the state falling under the influence of the Taliban. Large swathes of territory are either not under the control of the state or under only a very fragile and nominal control of the state. Even the so-called safe areas are extremely vulnerable and have frequently come under attack. The law enforcement agencies, when not trying to protect themselves from being attacked by the forces of Jihad, are busy in either protecting the privileged or indulging in rapine and loot. Hardly anyone, including the Pakistan army, really wants to confront the Taliban. Instead of forging a strategy to effectively combat the onslaught of the Islamists, the military top brass is concentrating more on protecting its privileges and its properties and hobbling, if not ensnaring, civilian governments to snuff out any possible challenge to their political dominance. And this in spite of the fact that a couple of thousand soldiers have already lost their lives in the full-blown Islamist insurgency and terrorism that has been wrecking havoc in the country. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Even as the conflagration in the Pashtun belt is flaring out of control, the province of Balochistan is spiralling out of control. Baloch nationalism has taken a violent form and targeted killings of security force officials and pro-government people, ambushes of military convoys, blowing up of economic infrastructure (gas pipelines, electricity pylons, telephone exchanges, railway tracks etc.) has become the order of the day. The government's brutal crackdown against political activists associated with the Baloch nationalist movement has only added to the already overflowing reservoir of alienation among the ordinary Baloch. If anything, today the political face of Baloch nationalism (who only demanded autonomy within Pakistan) has receded into the background and the extremists (who wish to carve out an independent Balochistan) are calling the shots. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>With both Balochistan and the Pashtun areas in flames, the Pakistani state has all but lost control over more than half of the country's territory. The situation in the remaining part is hardly anything to write home about. Sindh is seething with resentment and anti-Punjab feelings. Karachi, which is in the throes of an ethnic civil war in which hundreds of people have been killed in politically motivated target killings, is a powder keg waiting to explode. In Punjab, the southern part has already fallen under the influence of the 'Punjabi Taliban'. Important cities in Central and North Punjab like Faisalabad, Chakwal and Gujranwala, to name a just a few, have a strong presence of Islamic terror groups. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The economy meanwhile is in a tailspin and shows no sign of coming out of the ICU. For now, the drip of foreign assistance is keeping it alive. But even the aid infusion won't be enough unless the 'white cells' (or if you will the good guys) start the fight back to bring the body back to health. Unfortunately, the white cell count is so precariously low that the disease of Islamism is consuming the body politic and with it the economy at an alarmingly fast rate. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Under these circumstances, it would normally be expected that the people who have the most to lose from the deteriorating situation – the educated and elite classes, the military-bureaucratic establishment, the judiciary and civil society, the political class, the traders and industrialists – would put their heads together to forge some sort of a consensus on how to combat the dangers that confront their own interests. But no, nothing of the sort is happening. Instead those who have the most to lose are busy trading blame as to who and what is responsible for the abysmal state of affairs. What is worse, there is both a denial of the seriousness of the problems that face the country as well as an attitude of nonchalance as though what is happening is of no concern to them and is someone else's problem. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The public debate and discourse in Pakistan is so partisan, distorted and also so far removed from the ground reality, that there is now a total disconnect between the crises that confront Pakistan and the reasons and solutions that even ostensible sober and sensible people give for these crises. It is almost as though the Pakistani intelligentsia has lost the ability to think things through. For instance, a standard formulation in Pakistan today is that the war being waged in the Pashtun tribal belt between the Pakistan army and the radical Islamists (read Taliban and al Qaeda) is a mercenary war, a war that Pakistan is waging not for itself but for America. Hence, the solution that is forwarded is equally nonsensical: the authorities should engage the Taliban in a dialogue or that the Pakistani army should simply walk out of the tribal areas. The logic is that if Pakistan does not act against the Islamic radicals, they too will not retaliate against the Pakistani army. In other words, "leave them alone and they will not bother us" is the solution! None of the proponents of this solution are able to even comprehend that unless the Taliban threat is ruthlessly eliminated, it will only grow and will spread like wild-fire in rest of Pakistan, ultimately taking over the Pakistani state. They are also in denial about the intentions and objectives of the radical Islamists, which is to talibanise Pakistan by imposing their version of puritanical Islam in the country. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The inability of the Pakistani people to distinguish friend from foe stems from a totally warped national mindset which revels in bizarre conspiracy theories and suffers from paranoia of imagined enemies lurking everywhere out to destroy the country or at the very least deprive it of its 'strategic assets'. In a sense, the term 'strategic' is probably the biggest bane of Pakistan. Take for instance, the famed 'strategic assets' a.k.a. nuclear weapons. Today, it is not the nukes that protect Pakistan but Pakistan that protects its nukes! Then there are the other 'strategic assets' a.k.a. 'good Taliban' which Pakistan wants to retain to gain 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan to confront the 'strategic enemy' a.k.a. India and which makes it imperative for the Pakistani establishment to get into the mode of 'strategic defiance' of the US. That this sort of 'strategic vision' (purblindness, really) has pushed Pakistan over the brink has of course never really been part of the 'strategic calculus' of the Pakistan's real rulers – the Pakistan army. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Pakistan is not so much a victim of terrorism as it is a victim of the stupendous success of the demonical indoctrination programme which has replaced the innate pragmatism of the people with insane Islamism that doubles up as Islamic nationalism (an oxymoron, if ever there was one) and validates substantially, if not entirely, with the concept of Islamofascism. It is this phenomenon that leads a newspaper owner who is an ideal candidate for a lunatic asylum but in today's Pakistan is a leading flag bearer of the 'ideology of Pakistan' to demand a nuclear strike on India because after a nuclear exchange Pakistan will be able to progress like Japan did after Hiroshima! It is this thinking that leads a top general under Musharraf, and a man who at one point of time was touted as a possible successor to Musharraf to advocate firing "a nuclear warning shot in the Bay of Bengal, across India, demonstrating our circular range capacity" in order to send the message that "you don't mess with a nuclear power and get away with it". It is this thinking that makes a former information minister declare that "Pakistan has made nuclear weapons not to keep them in the cupboard but to use them against its enemies (read India and now more than ever the Western world, particularly USA)." It is this mindset that makes the so-called 'civil society' – news anchors, lawyers, activists – defend the action of the assassin of the former Punjab governor, Salman Taseer. And it is precisely this mindset that prevents the Pakistan army (its ranks filled with that other oxymoron, 'moderate Taliban') from ending its double-game in the war on terror.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>This then is the terrible reality of Pakistan. Unfortunately, just as the Pakistanis are in denial, so too are the Indians, or at least the Indian establishment, about the ground reality in Pakistan. India's Pakistan policy (if at all there is such a thing) is predicated on interactions with what is a fringe group of liberal, moderate, modern, and sensible Pakistanis who are excellent advocates of their country but whose words don't count for anything in terms of setting their country's policy or direction. This is a class which doesn't number more than a couple of thousand and probably qualifies to be registered as an endangered species under the UN Biodiversity Convention. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Despite the tendency for many in India to take vicarious pleasure over Pakistan's impending implosion, the fact is that Pakistan's collapse will be an unmitigated disaster for India, not only because it is utterly unprepared to handle the cataclysmic fallout of a 'failed' Pakistan but also because no matter what preparations it makes, there is no way India can insulate itself completely from the great tumult that will result when a country of 180 million people either descends into chaos or goes belly up on India's border. Forget about the nukes, they are the least of India's worries. The bigger danger is that the entire Partition arrangement that gave India relative peace for over 60 years will be blown to smithereens when millions of people start streaming into India either as refugees or as jihadists. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <1885 Words> 25<sup>th</sup> May, 2011<br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-2802535474952693632011-05-18T01:55:00.003-07:002011-05-18T01:55:57.649-07:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>PROFITING FROM TRADE<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Eating grass and denying people prosperity for the sake of national dignity and honour is the prerogative not of the elite who make these statements but of the ordinary people who suffer the consequences of the bloody minded policies of the ruling class which never ever gets to eat grass and is always prosperous. It is precisely this attitude that has denied the people of India and Pakistan the fruits of mutually beneficial trade and closer economic cooperation. Cutting your nose to spite your neighbours face seems to be a congenital problem in the ruling classes of South Asia, particularly in India and Pakistan. While most other countries of South Asia have understood the benefit of regional trade and transit agreements – Bangladesh's pitch for becoming the transit hub for India, Nepal and Bhutan is a shining example of the changing attitude in other countries of the region – a sort of beggar-thy-neighbour policy continues to dictate the economic relationship between the two largest countries in South Asia.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>It was no surprise then that despite the buzz surrounding the latest meeting between the commerce secretaries of India and Pakistan, there was no real breakthrough in promoting trade and economic interaction between the two countries. All that was achieved was some incremental progress and a lot of assurances that will probably never be fulfilled because of the greatest non-tariff barrier (NTB) – troubled political relations. In a sense, this NTB is a bit of a chicken-and-egg sort of conundrum: will improved political relations pave the way for trade between India and Pakistan or will lifting the trade barriers create a constituency for peace that will help in settling the political ties between them. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Clearly, trade and politics don't make for a good cocktail. But the problem is that it is not easy to separate trade and politics. Ideally, trade should not be seen as a political concession, much less a pressure point for achieving political objectives. Trade has its own intrinsic value and should be left to businessmen, who will trade not out of altruism but because there is profit to be made. And profit is generally a two way street, or to put it differently, mutually beneficial. Otherwise there is no incentive to trade. This truism is however often lost on bureaucrats, and even more on generals. In the statist model of trade, babus and not businessmen decide what trade is profitable and what is prohibited, which is why we have a positive list of tradable items. What instead needs to be done is to create an enabling environment in which businessmen of the two countries can decide what they want to buy and sell to each other. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The scepticism among many bureaucrats, and even some economists, on the potential of trade between India and Pakistan because many of the product lines of both countries are quite similar, doesn't really stand to scrutiny when we look at examples from other parts of the world. Take for instance the EU. Most European countries manufacture similar products and yet intra-EU trade outscores EU's trade with its other trading partners. Why can't the same happen in South Asia? If barriers to trade are lifted, comparative and competitive advantage will determine the direction and composition of trade and not some SRO or administrative fiat. What is more, the lifting of trade barriers will enable cheaper sourcing of raw material from the natural hinterlands that were rent asunder in 1947. Add to it the availability of markets and the benefits of trade are an absolute no-brainer.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>To be sure, there is a need to harmonise tariffs, rules and regulations and standards in South Asia. This lack of harmonisation is often considered (one daresay wrongly) as a major non-tariff barrier. When goods manufactured in one country do not conform to standards laid down in another country, trade will obviously not be possible. But before such differential standards are called NTB's two things need to be checked: one, are these standards country specific or are they applied to all countries equally; and two, are not similar standards also imposed in other countries. For instance, how is it that the same standard when imposed in the US or EU is not considered a NTB but becomes a NTB when imposed by India? <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>While these so-called NTB's which include trading facilities or the lack of them on the borders are more easily tackled, there are some real barriers to trade which are again more a function of the state of bilateral relationship than anything else. For example, the difficulties faced by businessmen in obtaining visas. In the current climate of distrust, visas are a major problem area. But to use this as an excuse to not move forward with trade is silly because this can be easily worked around by meeting in third countries. Yes, this increases the cost of doing business but if routing goods through a third country is profitable with all the additional expenses it entails, then surely business meetings won't add so much to the transaction cost as to make trade unprofitable. Of course, this is not an ideal situation, but it is better than not doing any business. A similar tactic can be followed on issues of goods inspection. Third party inspectors can be hired in each country to inspect the goods before they are despatched. In fact many western companies are already hiring such third party inspectors to do this sort of work. The point is that many of the imagined barriers can be easily worked around if there is no major penalty imposed on direct buying or selling between the two countries. And if relations improve, then many of these barriers will automatically get lifted. In the meantime, the business can continue to profit themselves, their consumers and their country.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Alongside trade, there is enormous potential for opening up investment and tourism travel between the two countries. It might be a controversial thing to say, but Pakistan stands to gain far more than India if it were to open itself to Indian investments, tourism and allow India transit rights to Afghanistan and Central Asia. The spin-offs of these three things for the Pakistani economy will be quite impressive and will allow Pakistan to cash in on its strategic location as a bridge between South Asia and Central Asia. But guess what, since we revel in cutting our noses to spite the other person, the protectors of sovereignty and ideological frontiers will never allow this to happen. After all, isn't honour and dignity more important than prosperity especially when you are not the one paying the price. But a more fundamental question is whether there honour and dignity in mutually beneficial trade (even if it is with an adversary) or is it in the begging bowl (even if it is spread before a friend)? <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <1150 Words> 12<sup>th</sup> May, 2011<br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-79880057750747690342011-05-18T01:55:00.001-07:002011-05-18T01:55:33.887-07:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>A GAME CHANGER<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Just as 9/11 changed the world, the elimination of Osama bin Laden (OBL) is going to be another game changer in the war on terror. While the Afpak region will bear the brunt of the strategic decisions made by the major players in the post OBL era, India will not be left untouched by the tumult that is likely to unfold in its neighbourhood. Unfortunately, instead of engaging in some serious analysis and scenario building on the likely changes in the regional strategic calculus of the major players, India is engrossed in a rather facile debate on whether or not it should emulate the US in taking out terrorist targets in Pakistan, conveniently ignoring the fact that India is nowhere close to America in terms of military superiority, economic clout and diplomatic influence. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>For India to take vicarious pleasure from Pakistan's predicament is entirely understandable. But this cannot be a substitute for a well-thought out policy to handle the post OBL situation, especially since the US hasn't quite given up on Pakistan just yet and has left some wriggle room for the Pakistani establishment to rehabilitate itself. That Pakistan is going to come under enormous pressure to clean up its act and end its double-game in the war on terror by severing all links with Islamist terror groups is a bit of a no-brainer. But what is not clear is how Pakistan will respond to this pressure. Will it play ball or will it dig in its heels and adopt the course of 'strategic defiance'? To a great extent, Pakistan's response will be a function of the domestic political repercussions of Operation Geronimo and how these are balanced with the international compulsions confronting the country. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>With Pakistan's public demanding answers, it will be interesting to see who carries the can for the national humiliation caused by US choppers breaching Pakistani defences and putting boots on ground right under the noses of the much vaunted 'defenders of territorial and ideological frontiers of Pakistan' i.e. Pakistan Army. Making the weak and discredited civilian government the fall guy is easy but will be a big mistake because next time there won't be any civilian buffer to bail out the army from charges of either complicity or incompetence. Therefore, unless the pressure for heads to roll becomes unbearable, chances are that the politicians and the military will stick together to ride out the storm.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The problem for Pakistan is that regardless of whether it now complies with US diktats or defies them, it will be confronted with a lot of turmoil. Towing the American line will mean having to move against Islamists all over the country – from Waziristan to Muridke. Not only will this be an unpopular thing to do, it will almost certainly lead to a backlash by terror organisations which will create a civil war like situation inside the country. On the other hand, 'strategic defiance' holds the prospect of international isolation, economic bankruptcy and the terrible unrest that will result from economic deprivation. Worse, once the gloves come off, then the possibility of international powers supporting freedom movements inside Pakistan – Sindh, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan – cannot be ruled out. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>There are dangers for India in both these cases. In the former case, while there is little chance of another 26/11 attack (the first one could have never taken place without the active support of the Pakistani state and we are assuming that post OBL a reformed Pakistani state will desist from sponsoring another such attack), there is nevertheless a very high possibility of the unrest in Pakistan spilling over into India. In the latter case, a disintegrating Pakistan could be tempted to take India down with it. The former army chief of Pakistan, Mirza Aslam Beg, is on record that it is the policy of the Pakistan army that even if Pakistan comes under attack from a third country, it will launch a nuclear strike on India. Even if nothing so drastic happens, India must still factor in the possibility of the Pakistani military establishment ratcheting up tension with India to rally it supporters. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what this will do to the half-baked and ill-conceived Indo-Pak 'peace process'. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>There are two other possibilities that India needs to ponder over. The first is that having got OBL, the Americans could be tempted to declare victory and abandon Afghanistan. With the OBL obstacle out of the way, the path to 'reconciliation' with the Taliban in Afghanistan has cleared, or so the Americans, and more than them the Pakistanis, will think. But to be able to bring the Taliban on the table, the US will need Pakistan to make the Islamist combatants more amenable to a political settlement. While this will give Pakistan a pivotal role in the deciding the future dispensation in Afghanistan (which by definition will have deep antipathy for India), the Americans will be able to extricate themselves from the Afghan quagmire leaving India out in the cold. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The other possibility holds more promise. The manner in which the US eliminated OBL could end up demoralising and disheartening large sections of the jihadists. The disillusionment that is likely to set in will open a window of opportunity to counter the attraction of jihadist ideology among young Muslims, including in India. Of course, a new idiom and narrative will have to be devised to wean away people inspired by the Islamist propaganda. The absence of such a counter narrative has been one of the biggest failings in the war on terror and OBL's despatch to hell would have been in vain if it cannot be effectively exploited to convince people of the hopelessness of the jihadist cause. But is anyone in India even thinking about this?<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <962 Words> 7<sup>th</sup> May, 2011<br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-37428796435982027252011-04-26T03:37:00.001-07:002011-04-26T03:37:34.126-07:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>BACK CHANNEL WITH PAKISTAN ARMY: A GAMBIT WORTH TRYING<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><strong> </strong>The denial by both the Prime Minister's Office in India and by the military spokesman in Pakistan of the story in <em>The Times</em> of an 'unofficial back channel' that had opened with the de facto ruler of Pakistan, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, isn't entirely unexpected. If indeed there was such a back channel then it is best kept under the wraps, not so much because it would make public what was being discussed or even negotiated – the details of the 'official' back channel negotiations during the Musharraf era are still secret even though the main protagonists claim to have nearly reached a deal – but more because it would be premature to admit the existence of such a back-channel until it had become a regular feature instead of a one-off contact. On the other hand, if there was no such back-channel contact, then the denials are perfectly in order and would end needless speculation on the nature of contact established between the Indian and Pakistani establishments. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Quite aside the fact that the denials would have come as a dampener for those who believe that there is a dire need for putting in place a channel of communication and dialogue between the establishments of the two countries, the very nature of the contact claimed by <em>The Times</em> – 'unofficial' – raises serious doubts over the efficacy of the so-called back-channel. It is of course entirely possible that some sort of contact, albeit 'unofficial' and perhaps even unauthorised, was made. After all, there are enough busybodies on both sides of the Radcliffe line who use their access to top policy making circles on either side to assume the role of self-appointed messengers. While generally the messages these people carry are either ignored or suffered in silence by the powers that be, there have been rare occasions when these messengers have helped in breaking the ice. Whether or not this is true in the current case is not entirely clear. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Even so, there is still a strong case for some sort of contact – in the preliminary stage perhaps only a military-to-military exchange between the NDC in India and NDU in Pakistan – being made with Pakistan's military establishment and exploring this track to see if a more sustained engagement is possible with the real rulers of Pakistan as opposed to the civilian show-boys that India has been so comfortable in dealing with. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The aversion in India to dealing directly with Pakistan's military establishment is entirely understandable but is also unreal given the power dynamics of Pakistani politics. Pakistan is, in a sense, a schizophrenic society. At one level, there is deep distrust and suspicion of the establishment and a tendency to attribute not only the most bizarre conspiracy theories to it but also hold it capable of, if not responsible for, the most horrible crimes. But at another level, there is an innate, almost blind, trust and faith in ability and capacity of the military establishment to protect the country and put things right. Most Pakistanis are quick to follow the lead of the army on issues of national security, especially when it comes to relations with India. As a result, when the army allows it, people gladly reach out to India (the 2004-2008 period bears witness to this) and when the army shuns it, the very same people pull back on all contact with India. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>This remarkable ability and agility of the military establishment in Pakistan to manipulate public opinion must to be taken into account by the Indian establishment before it takes any initiative on mending ties with Pakistan. The bottom line is that while India can have as many 'uninterrupted and uninterruptible' dialogues with the civilians in Pakistan as it wants, unless it manages at least a modus Vivendi with the all-powerful Pakistan army, none of these dialogues will lead to anything at all. Without getting the Pakistan army on board, any dialogue with Pakistan will either be a dialogue of the deaf or one with the meek and powerless, who one daresay are unlikely to inherit Pakistan.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>There are essentially two ways that India can approach Pakistan. The first is to engage Pakistani politicians and civil society, promote people-to-people exchanges, trade and what have you, in the hope of creating a constituency of peace that will force the hand of the military establishment to normalise relations with India. But quite frankly, for this strategy to work, India will have to wait till the cows come home. An alternative strategy is to continue with the above strategy but simultaneously open a sustained channel of communication and engagement – to start with, an 'official and empowered' back-channel – with Pakistan's military establishment. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Needless to say, given the power structure realities of the establishments of the two countries, the back channel contact will have to be handled with great care. In a democratic country like India, a back channel naturally tends to evoke suspicion. One way to counter this is to set up a multi-track back-channel – between intelligence agencies to discuss issues like terrorism etc., between the militaries where they discuss purely military matters, and a track in which both top civilian and military officials discuss security and doctrinal issues <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>If this 'composite' (given the diplomatic and political sensitivities of the Indian government, perhaps the word 'comprehensive' is more appropriate) back-channel shows promise, and in the course of discussing professional matters, creates an opening for discussing the strategic dimensions of the bilateral relationship, the two sides could consider bringing it on the front channel. In other words, they could make the transition to a 'strategic dialogue' in which a working group comprising designated civilian and military officials led by either the National Security Advisor or the External Affairs Minister discuss matters of higher state policy and the future trajectory of bilateral relations. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>But even if the back-channel contact remains a desultory track, there is still something to be said for continuing to engage an adversary but without the hype and hoopla that normally accompanies any India-Pakistan engagement. If anything, the one thing that the two countries need to avoid is hyping up the expectations of a breakthrough by indulging in high profile jamborees – Mohali comes to mind. Quiet, serious and sustained diplomacy is perhaps the only way forward, even if this takes a long time and denies the politicians the legacy that they so desperately crave to leave behind. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <975 Words> 25<sup>th</sup> April, 2011<br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-66404018038135365912011-04-01T02:27:00.001-07:002011-04-01T02:27:37.268-07:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>CRICKET DIPLOMACY OR MANMOHAN'S MALADY</strong><br /> </p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> On the evening of March 23, the day Pakistan celebrates its National Day and just a couple of days before the Indian Prime Minister decided to invite his Pakistani counterpart to watch the Indo-Pak cricket World Cup semi-final match in Mohali, Indian security agencies got specific information about an imminent attack on the Indian Ambassador and the Indian mission in Kabul. Needless to say, the fingerprints of the ISI were found all over the attack plan. Not only did the Indian intelligence have names of Pakistani officers who planned the attacks, they had all the information of how the attacks would be carried out. Without wasting any time on diplomatic niceties, the Pakistanis were immediately warned of 'severe consequences' if the attack was carried out. Caught with their pants down, the Pakistanis were forced to call off the attack. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Quite aside the fact that after two successful terror attacks on Indian establishments in Kabul – the suicide bombing on the Indian embassy in 2008 and the fidayeen attack on a transit accommodation of Indian officials in 2010 – this was the third or fourth time that a terror attack on Indian interests in Afghanistan had been pre-empted, the big question is whether the Indian Prime Minister has not been informed of these Pakistani plots against India, or whether he is so obsessed with entering into some sort of a peace deal with Pakistan that he is willing to ignore these murderous plots against Indian citizens. Increasingly, it appears that Dr Singh won't let anything, not even another 26/11, come in the way of his quest for peace with Pakistan. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Despite all the hype and hoopla and the mindless excitement, even hysteria, being whipped up over the semi-final match, and notwithstanding all the needless romanticization of how 'cricket is the winner' or that 'cricket is a bridge between the two countries' or even that 'cricket is a religion in the two countries' (Pakistanis saying this are liable to be murdered as apostates), the ugly reality of Indo-Pak relations is something that Indians would do well not to lose sight off. But first, a word about that old cliché of not mixing politics with sport: isn't the invitation to the Pakistani President and Prime Minister a classic case of mixing politics with cricket? Indeed, the very phrase 'cricket diplomacy' reeks of politics, and ends up relegating cricket into a sideshow. It is, however, quite another matter that the current round of 'cricket diplomacy' can hardly be called good politics. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>For one, the two gentlemen invited by Dr Singh – President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani – don't really add up to very much in Pakistan, even less so when it comes to dealing with India. If the purpose of the invitation was something more than just creating a 'tamasha' (perhaps in the hope of deflecting attention from the massive corruption scandals dogging the government), it might have made more sense to have called the real power behind the throne – the Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. Alternatively, Dr Singh could have played a little politics with the Pakistanis by inviting the entire spectrum of Pakistan's political leadership and holding a virtual all-party meeting of the Pakistani politicians on Indian soil with the aim of evolving a political consensus among them on peace with India, something that would have strengthened the hands of the Zardari/Gilani combine if they ever decided to move forward on relations with India.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>No doubt, Gilani's presence in Mohali made for great optics and kept TV news channels busy analysing the 'body language' of the leaders of the two countries. But apart from enriching marketers on both sides of the Radcliffe line, the visit was never going to achieve anything substantial. A major reason for this was the timing. With the two countries having restarted the Composite Dialogue, there is no ice that needs to be broken by inviting the Pakistani Prime Minister for a cricket match. Nor is there any great crisis between the two countries that is sought to be defused through 'cricket diplomacy'. As for the invitation generating great goodwill on both sides of the border, this appears unlikely simply because the country that lost went into a sulk and the one that won gloated, both without any grace. Except for a brief period in the middle of the last decade when cricket matches between the two countries were played in the spirit of sport, the norm has been to treat the cricket ground more as a battlefield than a sports field. And at a time, when the two sides are just picking up the pieces of their tattered dialogue, the last thing they need is the hangover induced by a cricket encounter that has been unfortunately and rather unnecessarily politicised. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>There was an argument made that if Pakistani spectators are allowed to see the match in Mohali, it will work as a shot in the arm for promoting people-to-people contacts between the two countries and give a huge fillip to the peace process between them. The problem is that the visa procedures as they stand didn't permit many Pakistanis to enter India, unless of course, the Indian security agencies had decided to open the borders for Pakistani spectators. In the flush of excitement over the invitation to Gilani, it is possible that the government threw caution to the winds and let a large number of Pakistani spectators enter India without any sort of vetting. If so then this they would have done at grave peril to the security of India. In his statement to the NIA, the infamous David Headley has admitted that he and the mastermind of the 26/11 attacks, Sajid Mir, used cricket tourism in 2005 as a ploy to survey and select their targets in India, including the PMs residence and the National Defence College. What is more, some 26 people who came for watching cricket matches in India in 2005 never returned to Pakistan. Five of these people were subsequently arrested and all of them were found to be sleeper agents indulging in espionage. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>This is not to say that all Pakistanis are engaged in inimical actions against India. Far from it, there are many, many people of goodwill in Pakistan who don't harbour any inimical feelings towards India, people one is proud to call friends. The problem is that these nice guys don't really count for much and most of them are fast becoming an endangered species in their own country. In any case, the business of national security has to deal with nasty, and not nice, guys and therefore cannot afford to adopt a cavalier attitude for the sake of a cricket match, even if it is a World Cup semi-final between India and Pakistan. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>While under normal circumstances, it is a good thing if leaders of countries can just hop across for watching a sporting encounter, in the accident prone and extremely fragile India-Pakistan relationship, such flying visits can prove to be counterproductive. They create completely unrealistic expectations which are invariably dashed on the altar of ground realities and critical national interests. What India and Pakistan need is quiet diplomacy instead of loud, garrulous, Punjabi-style 'jhappis and pappis' which inevitably lead to a severe hangover after reality bites. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <1217 Words> 1<sup>st</sup> April, 2011<br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-16369775491041285862011-02-26T05:05:00.001-08:002011-02-26T05:05:55.696-08:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>INDIA'S DEAFENING SILENCE ON THE TUMULT IN THE ARAB WORLD<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><em>"The worst place in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral during a moral crisis"</em>: Dante <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>At a time when there is great tumult in the entire Arab world, India's continuing silence on the developments in a region of critical strategic and political importance is not just inexplicable but also deafening. Whether this is borne out of abundant caution or a natural proclivity for fence sitting until the situation crystallises, or even the result of an increasing tendency in Indian diplomacy to wait for a cue from the Western world (read USA), is not quite clear. Whatever the case, given India's immense stakes in the political developments in West Asia and North Africa, there is a need to articulate India's policy and position on the events sweeping through the Arab world. The big challenge for Indian diplomacy today is to correctly read the unfolding events across the Arab world and take positions that protect India's vital national interests. In other words, India will have to identify with the popular aspirations of the peoples, but without burning its bridges with the rulers and establishments of these countries. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>It is quite clear by now that the uprising in Tunisia has unleashed a domino effect that is being felt across the length and breadth of the entire Arab world. From Morocco to Iran and from Syria to Yemen, autocratic and authoritarian regimes are being challenged by their peoples like never before. While strongmen in Tunisia and Egypt have been swept aside by peoples uprising, potentates in Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Bahrain are appearing increasing shaky. Other countries like Morocco, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia have also seen protests, which could easily snowball into uprisings. There appear to be two broad options before the rulers in the Arab world: either introduce political reform or else resort to even greater repression. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Chances are that while some rulers will take the reform road, others will prefer to take the repressive path. There is however no guarantee as to what will work in which country. This means that while reforms will successfully lead to an orderly transition to a more liberal, open and progressive order in some countries, it could just as well unravel the delicate social and political balance in other countries. Similarly, repression might be successful in stalling cries for reform and bottling up dissent in some countries for some more time, but could also lead to greater chaos and anarchy in other countries. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>That there is no one-size-fits-all solution available means that India too must avoid diplomatic prescriptions of the one-size-fits-all variety. This means Indian diplomacy will have to correctly read the tea leaves and make assessments as to what will happen where, on the basis of which the Indian government will have to take more forthright positions. Of course, before taking any position, India will need to first define pragmatically where its interest lie. It is entirely possible that in some countries where repression is employed to keep radical Islamists at bay, India supports the regime. But in other countries where regimes' use the bogey of either radical Islam or 'foreign hand' to repress liberal and progressive forces, India weighs in against the regime. Essentially, there are too many permutations and combinations likely and India needs to treat each country sui generis because despite the cultural and civilizational unity of the Arab world, the political dynamics and drivers in every Arab country are different and will play a critical role in determining the political outcome in different countries.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>As things stand, the situation in the entire Arab world remains very fluid and it is not quite clear which regimes will retain their control and which will be replaced. Where regimes are replaced, what will they be replaced by is another question which has no easy and ready answer. Will the transitions be smooth or will there be great chaos and anarchy leading to unravelling of the state which then either breaks into new states or gives way to a tribal confederacy or descends into a Somalia type of warlordism? Are the uprisings being driven by Islamism or by the desire for greater political freedom and will the autocracies give way to democratic forces or to Islamists? Or will it be merely a change of face, with one autocrat being replaced by his clone with no change in the 'system'? Will Kingdoms like Jordan, Morocco and Bahrain plough a different political trajectory from dictatorships like Yemen, Libya and Syria? These and numerous such questions are what the Indian diplomats and academics should be answering to help the government come up with a cogent and coherent policy, as well as response, to the unfolding situation. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Despite the self-inflicted shrinking role of Indian diplomacy in global politics which is probably a fallout of the shift in focus to economic diplomacy and the neglect of all other aspects of international diplomacy, India cannot afford to be a mute spectator of developments in the Arab world. Merely issuing pro forma statements – expressing 'pain and shock' over detention and attack on journalists, 'hoping' that the situation in Egypt is 'resolved in a peaceful manner, in the best interests of the people of Egypt' and then 'welcoming' the decision of Hosni Mubarak to resign and 'welcoming the commitment of the Supreme Council...to establish and open and democratic framework of governance' – is hardly enough, even less so given the fact that many Arab nations look to India as a friend, philosopher and guide to make a transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Instead of banal statements, India probably needs to take a more pro-active stance to assist in this transition process, because the shape of future dispensations in the Arab world will have a significant bearing on the India's own stability, security and economic well-being.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>For over millennia, India has felt the impact of every major political development in the Arab world. In today's globalised world, the effects of changes in West Asia and North Africa are likely to be even more immediate and far-reaching. The bulk of India's fuel supplies come from this region. Millions of Indian expatriates are settled in these countries from where they send money back home. The Arab world is one of India's largest export markets. Politically, any radicalisation in this region is bound to have an impact on the Indian Muslims, evidence of which we are already seeing in parts of the country from where a large Indian diaspora has gone to the West Asia. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The challenge for India is therefore to forge a policy that balances its economic and political interests (including its extremely beneficial ties with Israel) with its moral and ideological commitment to a democratic, pluralistic and progressive political system. Equally important, such a policy will need to be variegated according to the unique circumstances prevailing in each of the countries of the region. But being a mealy mouthed fence sitter is not an option for a country aspiring to play a major role on the world stage.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <1175 Words> 24<sup>th</sup> February, 2011<br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-57578465676290912432011-02-20T00:35:00.001-08:002011-02-20T00:35:12.028-08:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>'FIXING' THE BETS</strong><br /> </p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Even though the shadow of the 'spot fixing' scandal, which led to the suspension by the ICC of three top Pakistani cricketers, will be hanging over the cricket World Cup, it is not going to be enough to dissuade the bookies from 'fixing' the odds and taking bets on each and every match that will be played during the World Cup. After all, the World Cup is the biggest event in cricket and the bookmakers are not going to let anything come in the way – the law being only a minor inconvenience, easily circumvented – to rake in the big bucks. Just as officially, record monies are going to be involved in terms of sponsorships, TV rights and what have you, cricket betting too is expected to break new records even though there will be 'nothing official about it'. In fact, despite not being legal in South Asia, betting has pretty much become such an integral part of the business of the game that it has almost acquired the status of becoming a part of the extended merchandising industry associated with cricket. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Unfortunately, in the subcontinent, which is today the Mecca of the cricket world, betting and bookmaking are held synonymous with 'match fixing'. Whether this is a sign of the growing lack of common sense or the outcome of the murder of English language in South Asia, the fact remains that these are two entirely different things. The fixing of matches is of course linked to the betting industry. But to extrapolate this to label all betting as match fixing is ridiculous. In a sense, cricket betting can be compared to the stock market. Match fixing is to betting what insider trading and market manipulation to make super-normal profits is to the stock market – essentially a criminal activity. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The problem is that the huge sums of money involved in cricket betting, coupled with the fact that owing to the legal ban on cricket betting it is completely an underground activity (and hence controlled by the underworld), has meant that the incentive for cheating is that much greater. Since there is no transparency in the betting industry, it becomes so much easier to 'fix' the outcome of a game and make enormous profits. And this is where the players get sucked in the vortex because games cannot be fixed without buying out players who can be game-changers. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>But the seriousness shown by the ICC in the spot-fixing case, the spate of sting operations ensnaring cricketers, the hawk-eye that is likely to be kept by the law enforcement agencies on all players in the tournament, the procedures laid down for restricting contact with players are all going to make it very difficult to buy out players (who too will be extremely cautious) to make them throw matches in the current World Cup. Unless, of course, the 'setting' has already been done, which appears to be just too long a shot to be possible. Therefore, the odds are that matches will not be fixed during the current World Cup. Even betting innovations like spot-fixing are unlikely. But does this mean that there will be no betting? Far from it, betting will in all likelihood touch new heights both in terms of money and variety (runs per over, number of no balls in a match, number of fours and sixes, you name it and you can place a bet on it). <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The bookmakers would have already put in place their systems and would have deployed the latest technology to ensure that they are one step ahead of the law enforcers trying to stop them. Advances in communication technology has led to both a widening and deepening of the betting industry and introduced new and innovative 'instruments' of betting. From a time when bets were placed on chits and for the whole match to the use of pagers and then mobile phones to now when bets can be placed on every ball and in a secure chat room on the internet, there has been a virtual revolution in this industry. What new innovation will be used this time remains to be seen.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Leaving aside the mens rea behind fixing matches, the fact remains that working out the odds in a cricket match is a highly technical job which involves evaluating bench strengths of teams, form of players, playing conditions (weather, pitch etc. and depending on this the toss and the decision on whether to bat or field), crowd support – the list is endless. Crunching all these factors into numbers to work out the odds and to keep changing the odds as the game proceeds would be challenging for even a trained actuary. The trouble is that since betting is considered illegal, the information that bookmakers require to fix the odds comes at a premium and anyone parting with such relatively harmless information (which is technically not a state secret and is known to people like the ground staff or met department etc) becomes an accessory to the crime especially since the law enforcement machinery in India proceeds on the presumption that 'all betting is setting'. But then why is betting on horse-racing allowed? After all, there are instances of horse races also being fixed. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>If only the governments in South Asia were to give up their antiquated notions of guarding public morality and legalise betting, the fascinating world of cricket betting would become far more transparent and would actually earn revenue for the game and the states. Would that end the phenomenon of match fixing? Certainly not, because someone somewhere (including players) will always try to make a quick buck by short-circuiting the system. But remember, there are far fewer cases of match fixing in countries like England, Australia and South Africa where betting is legalised than in countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka where it is illegal. Perhaps the time has come where a more liberalised attitude should be adopted on the issue of betting, and at the same time no mercy whatsoever should be shown to any player found to be indulging in throwing matches or spot fixing. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <1025 Words> 17<sup>th</sup> February, 2011<br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-16081228146659854162011-02-10T04:22:00.001-08:002011-02-10T04:22:23.665-08:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>SHARM-EL-SHEIKH LIKE SURRENDER IN THIMPHU</strong><br /> </p><p style='text-align: center'>By <br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Cut through the claptrap of diplomatese and it is clear that the Manmohan Singh government has accepted all of Pakistan's demands and put the Composite Dialogue back on the rails; only the word 'composite' will be replaced by words like 'comprehensive', 'continuous', and 'constructive' to put a positive spin on what is clearly a capitulation by India. Given the track record of the Manmohan Singh led dispensation's policy on Pakistan, the complete about turn made by the Indian government on the commitment and assurance given to the Indian people that it would not get back to the Composite Dialogue framework until the perpetrators and plotters of the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai were brought to justice, should come as no surprise. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Within weeks of the 26/11 attacks, it had become apparent that the Indian Prime Minister was desperate to restart the dialogue with Pakistan and was willing to do anything and pay any price to this end. The Sharm-el-Sheikh joint statement, in which the Indian Prime Minister pulled out all stops to appease the Pakistanis, stands as testimony to the Indian government's feckless approach to putting an end to cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan. Even the insult heaped on the Indian External Affairs Minister, SM Krishna, by his Pakistani counterpart in Islamabad last July did not dissuade the Indian Prime Minister to stop committing the folly of pursuing what is clearly a desultory peace track with Pakistan. In Islamabad, Krishna had practically conceded on everything that the Pakistanis wanted; the only sticking point was that India wanted to save some face by not committing to any firm time line for resolving issues like Kashmir, Siachen etc. Sensing the desperation in the Indian Prime Minister to start the dialogue, the Pakistanis decided to go for broke which led to the talks collapsing. But what the Pakistanis couldn't get in Islamabad has now been given to them on a platter in Thimphu. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Fearful of a fierce reaction from the Indian public opinion, the Indian External Affairs ministry is chary of admitting that India has returned to the Composite Dialogue. It is therefore misleading the Indian public by peddling the nonsense of 'sequentially' discussing all issues that were part of the Composite Dialogue process, culminating in the visit of the Pakistani foreign minister. Pray, what else was the Composite Dialogue process? In order to sweeten the bitter pill being administered to the Indian public, issues like Kashmir and Siachen will be come later in the 'sequencing' process, by which time it is hoped that a manufactured bonhomie will make Indian public opinion amenable to a return to the Composite Dialogue (sorry, the Indian foreign secretary doesn't like 'getting stuck in terminology' and prefers to call it a return to a 'constructive' dialogue in which 'no issue will be left out'). <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Regardless of the reasons for Manmohan Singh's obsessive quest for improving relations with Pakistan – warding off American pressure (such "pressure" is essentially only in the mind and one can take a lesson from how successfully a bankrupt Pakistan which is completely dependent on US aid shrugs it off), winning the Nobel Prize (isn't the Prime Ministership of India a big enough prize?), economic spin-off's of South Asian peace (it is not Pakistan that stops India's progress but the dysfunctional administration and horrendously corrupt and venal political system, epitomised by the Rajas', Radias' and Kalmadis', over which he presides and protects?), to save Pakistan from its self-created jihadi monsters (if the Americans can't do this, India surely can't, nor for that matter, does Pakistan even want to be saved from them since they are Pakistan's biggest foreign exchange earner in the form of Western aid) – the manner in which the so-called peace process is being pursued by the Indian PM is likely to reaffirm Pakistan's assessment of India as a country that just doesn't have the staying power to follow through with its stated policy. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The Pakistani perception of India had been once summed up by one of their ISI chiefs – Javed Nasir, the man was behind the Mumbai blasts in 1993 – who said that 'you lick the Indians, they kick you; and if you kick the Indians they lick you'. The government's Pakistan policy has only proved the Pakistani general correct. After all, when after 26/11 the Pakistanis were begging India for a dialogue, the Indians refused; and now that the Pakistanis are kicking the Indians, the Manmohan Singh government is grovelling for a dialogue. No wonder, the Pakistanis never took Manmohan Singh seriously even after the 26/11 attacks. They adopted a two pronged approach with the Indian PM: stonewall all demands for bringing the guilty of 26/11 attacks to justice and at the same time heap him with compliments – visionary, statesman etc. – which will seduce him to forget the massacre of Indians by Pakistani terrorists and bring him scurrying back to the dialogue table. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>But even the Pakistanis would have been surprised by the timing of the initiatives taken by India to get back to the talks table. The invitation to the Pakistan foreign secretary last year came against the backdrop of the London Conference on Afghanistan which had got the Pakistanis all excited and flush with misplaced triumphalism that their double game in Afghanistan had succeeded and that India's willingness to resume the dialogue was a sign of its weakness. This year the talks took place a couple of days after the Pakistanis observed the Kashmir Solidarity day, a day on which jihadi terrorists like the Lashkar-e-Taiba held rallies in the heart of every major city of Pakistan and openly threatening nuclear jihad on India. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>For the Indian foreign secretary to call the Lashkar-e-Taiba chief, Hafiz Saeed, 'an inconsequential person' smacks of an unfortunate lack of understanding of the reality in Pakistan. The fact of the matter is that Hafiz Saeed is the most important man in Pakistan, and his power is comparable to that of the army chief. He has today become the symbol of that country and every institution of the Pakistani state – the judiciary, the army, the political parties, and the media – go out of their way to protect and defend him. His significance can be gauged by the fact that even the Pakistan army is afraid of acting against him. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>But it is not just the actions of Hafiz Saeed which the Manmohan Singh government wishes to turn a blind eye; in order to create a conducive climate for the dialogue, the Indian foreign secretary has been desperately brushing under the carpet the stream of vitriol pouring out from the Pakistani foreign office over the last few months. Surely, the Pakistani foreign office must be touched by the enormous understanding that the Indian foreign secretary has shown for their compulsion to bad-mouth India. Interestingly, even as the foreign secretary says that it would be unrealistic to expect her Pakistani counterpart to criticise his spokesman or his foreign minister, she was most ready to accept the Pakistani foreign secretary's assurance that "the Pakistan army was on board to take these talks forward". Worse, this was offered to the Indian media as something that would lend weight to the dialogue between the two countries. Did she actually expect her Pakistani counterpart to say that the Pakistan army was not on board? Nor did she bother to explain why, if the Pakistan army is so keen on talks, the entire infrastructure of terrorism directed against India has been reactivated by them. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Even if we ignore all these inconvenient facts, surely the people of India need to know what action has been taken by the Pakistani authorities against the patrons of the 26/11 attacks. What has happened in the last six months that India feels that Pakistan has done enough to warrant a return to the Composite Dialogue? If anything, reports in the Pakistani press have revealed that the Pakistanis have warned India that the accused standing trial in Pakistan for their involvement in the 26/11 attacks are going to be released by the Pakistani courts if permission is not given to the judicial commission formed by Pakistan to examine Indian officials who investigated the 26/11 attacks. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The Indian people also need to know what the Manmohan Singh government expects to achieve from the dialogue from Pakistan. Stories doing the rounds in New Delhi hint at a compromise on the issue of Siachen. If there is an iota of truth in these stories then this obsession of normalising of relations with Pakistan, even if this is at the cost of India's territorial unity and integrity, is acquiring dangerous dimensions. While peace and friendship are entirely desirable objectives, they are not an end in themselves. The Indian people need to be informed as to what we hope to achieve from peace and normalisation with Pakistan and whether the price that is being demanded off India in terms of a compromise in its core national interest, self-respect and dignity is worth it.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>As things stand, if the current dispensation doesn't give up its non-serious and cavalier approach to issues of vital national security, then it is only a matter of time that another 26/11 type of attack is repeated in India. And going by the namby-pamby approach of this government, it should be clear that all the talk of India being forced to retaliate in the event of another major terrorist attack is nothing but an empty boast. As long as this government is in power, the terrorists and their sponsors know that India will retaliate only by threatening to retaliate. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><1595 Words> 10<sup>th</sup> February, 2011<br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-45923237525713475802011-02-08T21:42:00.001-08:002011-02-08T21:42:14.523-08:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>WHAT PAKISTAN HAS DONE TO THE PASHTUNS</strong><br /> </p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>Sushant Sareen<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> For a country that never tires championing the cause of Afghan Pashtuns and eulogising the valour and traditions of Pakistani Pashtuns, the warped strategic vision of the national security state structure of Pakistan has inflicted the greatest damage to the identity, society, culture, traditions and most of all, posterity, of the Pashtuns. On the pretext of fighting for their interests, the Punjabi dominated Pakistani establishment has systematically reduced a once proud Pashtun community into pawns on the strategic chess-board. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Since 1947, either by design or by default, the policy framework adopted by the Pakistani establishment has only recognised either ultra-conservative Muslim nationalists or radical Islamists as the 'sole spokesmen' of the Pashtuns. Take for instance the Taliban: it is not the Pashtun ethnicity of the Taliban that makes Pakistan support them; it is the Islamist ideology of the Taliban - an ideology that rejects ethnic identity – that has so endeared the Taliban to the Pakistani establishment. In other words, Pakistan is backing the Taliban not so much because they represent Pashtun nationalism but because they reject Pashtun nationalism, which since Partition has been a bugbear of the Punjabi dominated Pakistani establishment. In the Pakistani scheme of things, anything that emphasizes Pashtun identity, culture, language, traditions must be suppressed or metamorphosed to serve the Punjab determined interests of Pakistan. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> It is in large part for this reason why the Pakistanis kept the Pashtun Tribal belt as a sort of anthropological zoo where the social, cultural, educational and political development of the people remained medieval even as adjoining areas – the so-called 'settled areas' – showed some semblance of modernity. To an extent, this Pakistani policy of making FATA into a 'reservation' gained legitimacy from the needless romanticization of Pashtun tribalism by the British who portrayed the Pashtuns as free-spirited, noble savages who lived by their own code of ethics and tolerated no attempt to curb their autonomy, much less their independence. The natural consequence of letting FATA become the 'wild west' of Pakistan was that it remained under-developed, under-educated and under-represented. Among the worst sufferers were women who were treated no better than chattels. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>With no economic activity worth the name, FATA transformed into a haven for criminals from all over Pakistan who sought refuge in this area and conducted their nefarious trade – smuggling, gun-running, narcotics, kidnapping, car theft etc – with complete impunity. Administratively, FATA was a dark zone lorded over by a rapacious and unaccountable local bureaucracy that trampled human rights of the people under the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulation. By not allowing political parties to operate in FATA, the Pakistani establishment sought to depoliticize the region. The vacuum thus created was filled by the nexus between the mafia and the mullah, which suited the Pakistani establishment perfectly as it allowed the exploitation of the Pashtun tribesmen as cannon fodder for the various misadventures of the Pakistani state, starting with the 'tribal invasion' of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 and culminating with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990's. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The policies of the Pakistani establishment, or what a Pakistani columnist calls 'deep state', were equally pernicious in the so-called 'settled areas' – the province of NWFP which has now been renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. From the hounding of the liberal, secular Khudai Khidmatgars to the electoral manipulation that led to the formation of the MMA government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the Pakistani establishment has done everything to push the Pashtun's into the dark ages and sully their image around the world. Even when the ANP and PPP were allowed to form the government, it was more because it suited the interest of the establishment. But circumstances were created to ensure that the ANP-PPP government was unable to function properly because of the insurgency in the province, which led to effective control over the province passing back into the hands of the 'deep state'. In effect, the military operations in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have disenfranchised the Pashtuns.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The effect of the 'deep state's' policies, tactics and strategy on the Afghan Pashtuns has been nothing short of cataclysmic and is epitomised by Pakistan's support for the barbaric Taliban. Pakistan could have changed course after the liberation of Afghanistan from the yoke of the Taliban following 9/11 attacks in the US. But the Pakistani strategists were not ready to let go of their Islamist proxies who they considered as guarantors of their quest for 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan. After allowing the Taliban to recover and regroup for a couple of years after 9/11, Pakistan unleashed them on Afghanistan from around 2004. Needless to say, the brunt of the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan was felt in the Pashtun dominated areas in the south and east of the country. By directing the Taliban attacks on aid and development workers, the Pakistanis were in effect ensuring that the Pashtun belt lagged behind other parts of Afghanistan where reconstruction activity was taking place at a feverish pace. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The deprivation of the Pashtuns was a deliberate policy aimed at enhancing the sense of grievance and alienation among the Pashtuns and introducing a vicious cycle in which terror strikes on development activity led to a halt in reconstruction work, which in turn impaired development of the Pashtun areas and resulted in growing anger among the people who felt they were being marginalised by the non-Pashtun dominated dispensation in Kabul. This anger was exploited by the Taliban to win over support from local communities which led to a further deterioration in the security situation. The Taliban also ensured that all efforts at providing governance in the Pashtun areas came a cropper. The direct impact of the relentless targeting of government officials was to render the administration dysfunctional and the resultant vacuum was filled by the Taliban who set up their own parallel administration for dispensing what they called justice and settling disputes between members of local communities. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The destruction of the schools and denial of education to girls was an essential part of the war on the Pashtun people. The only purpose of attacking the schools was to deny the future generations of Pashtuns even a modicum of secular education that would equip them to walk in step with rest of the world. As far as the Taliban are concerned, the Pashtun children did not need anything more than a grounding in religion through a madrassa education. The fact that madrassa educated Pashtuns could neither compete nor coexist with other ethnic groups is perhaps part of the calculus of denying the Pashtuns a proper education. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>At the political level also, the Taliban have ensured the marginalisation of the Pashtuns by coercing them to not participate in the elections. With many Pashtuns not casting their votes in the recently concluded parliamentary polls, candidates belonging to non-Pashtun ethnic groups managed to win even in Pashtun dominated areas. For instance, in Ghazni, the Hazaras managed to win most of the parliamentary seats because of the low voter turnout among the Pashtuns. In the Afghan National Army and Police, all efforts to correct the ethnic imbalance by increasing the Pashtun representation has been stymied by the Taliban and their Pakistani backers who have threatened the Pashtuns with reprisals against their families and communities if they joined the ANA and ANP. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The havoc wrought on the Pashtuns by the Pakistani sponsored and supported Taliban and the systematic infusion of radical Islamist ideology in the Pashtun areas has made every Pashtun a suspect in the eyes of not only other ethnic groups in Afghanistan but also in rest of the world. The Pashtun areas are today seen as a zone of global instability and an epicentre of global terrorism. Ironically, in their compulsive obsession to control the Pashtun politics and prevent any assertion of Pashtun nationalism, Pakistan may have created a situation where regardless of whether the Taliban come to power in Afghanistan or there is the emergence of a Pashtun dominated entity in that country, the ramifications for Pakistan will be extremely serious. The impact of both a radical Islamist Taliban dispensation in Afghanistan or a virtual partition of Afghanistan with a 'Pashtunistan' straddling the border with Pakistan could well lead to the unravelling of the Pakistani state as we know it. The only way to avoid such a development is for Pakistan to end its double game with the Pashtuns and the Americans and allow the emergence of a liberal, progressive and secular Pashtun leadership in Afghanistan, a leadership which is at peace with other ethnic groups inside Afghanistan and is friendly with other countries in the region. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <1450 Words> 3<sup>rd</sup> February, 2011<br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-63715377069404503952011-01-14T06:50:00.001-08:002011-01-14T06:50:23.458-08:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>BLASPHEMY LAW AND THE MARGINALISATION OF PAKISTAN'S MODERATE MUSLIMS</strong><br /> </p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>In a country where the man in charge of maintaining law and order and fighting Islamic terrorists, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, has no compunctions in declaring that he would personally shoot anyone committing blasphemy, where a minister for religious affairs justifies suicide bombings in Britain because of the knighthood given to author Salman Rushdie, and where the chief justice of Lahore High Court enunciates a new principle of jurisprudence under which the courts don't require any witness to establish a case of blasphemy against an accused, a Mumtaz Qadri (the assassin who murdered Punjab Governor Salman Taseer for calling the infamous Blasphemy Law a 'black law') is pretty much par for the course. But more than the act of assassination, or for that matter the motivation of the man who carried it out, the real significance of the event lies in what it exemplifies and portends viz. radicalisation has seeped far too deep into Pakistan's society and is today the norm, and the liberals and moderates with which the rest of the world interfaces are the exception.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The outpouring of grief, condemnation and soul searching by what is now clearly an endangered species of liberal and moderate writers has conveyed an impression that there is widespread revulsion in the country over the assassination. Nothing can be farther than the truth. According to Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, the 'moderates' have a strong presence only in the editorial pages of the English language press, the readership of which is not more than a few hundred thousand in a nation of close to 180 million people. More than anything else, the virtual deluge of write-ups on Salman Taseer's killing in the English media illustrates the panic being felt by sections of the Pakistani elite. Taseer's murder came as a rather rude shock to many of these people who until now had pretty much been untouched and unaffected by the tide of religious fanaticism that is sweeping Pakistan. Qadri has, however, demonstrated that they too are fair game for the Islamists if they either defy or even deviate from the norms dictated by the extremist mainstream.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The times when this tiny elite used to set the social, cultural and political agenda of Pakistan are long gone. Over the last couple of decades, street and state power has been steadily shifting away from the miniscule, so-called liberal and progressive elite. The reaction of both the street and the state to Taseer's killing stands testimony to the marginalisation of the so-called 'moderates', what with million man marches in support of Qadri, and not more than a handful of 'civil society' activists protesting against the assassination. And while rose petals were showered on Qadri by Pakistani lawyers, it was difficult to find a cleric who was willing to read Taseer's funeral prayers. Even worse, leading lights of the lawyers movement – Aitzaz Ahsan, Justice Tariq Mehmood, Justice Wajihuddin and Ali Ahmed Kurd – who never tired of telling the world that the movement was in defence of rule of law and a more liberal and caring Pakistani state, flatly refused to come out in public to condemn Qadri.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>If this was the 'civil society's' reaction, the response of the state was no better. Reams have been written about how, from the Prime Minister down all senior government functionaries distanced themselves from the stand Taseer had taken against the death sentence given to a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, for allegedly committing blasphemy. There is also the sorry spectacle of Interior Minister Rehman Malik advising a ruling party lawmaker, Sherry Rehman, to leave the country if she wants to live. Her crime: she moved a private member's bill seeking amendments in the blasphemy law to prevent its abuse and misuse. The mullahs are baying for her blood, issuing fatwas that hold her murder a righteous and obligatory act for Muslims, but there has been absolutely no action by the state machinery against this blatant incitement to murder. What is worse, many police officials, including those involved in anti-terrorist operations, are reported to have voiced their support for Qadri and justified his actions. Is it any surprise then that warnings about Qadri's Islamist leanings were ignored? <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>With the Pakistani state leaning over backwards to appease the extremists, the Islamists have latched on to the blasphemy law to stamp their domination on the social, political, cultural, legal and constitutional discourse in Pakistan. They have felt further emboldened by the judiciary's complicity with, if not capitulation to, Islamism. To quote Pakistani columnist and Member of National Assembly, Ayaz Amir: "lower-tier judges go out of their way to look for loopholes when dangerous terrorists are on trial, thus giving them the benefit of the doubt, and...close all loopholes and don spectacles of the utmost strictness when it comes to the trial of a poor Christian man or woman...charged with blasphemy, on the flimsiest of evidence or the most dubious of motives". The attitude of the superior judiciary is no better, with the chief justice of Pakistan declaring that the court couldn't be a mute bystander and let Pakistan become a secular state and the Lahore High Court forbidding the government from granting any clemency to Aasia Bibi.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The seriousness of the systemic crisis that confronts Pakistan can also be gauged from the fact that the mullahs who are in the vanguard of extolling Qadri's act belong to the anti-Taliban Barelvi sect which is being touted as face of moderate Islam and is being propped up by the Pakistani state as a counterforce to the pro-Taliban Deobandi sect. But as is clear from the Taseer episode, when it comes to fanaticism, there is little to choose between the shrine- worshipping Sufi syncretism of the Barelvis and the Puritanism of Wahabbi inspired Deobandis. In other words, the struggle in Pakistan is no longer between moderate and radical Islam; it is between two competing versions of radical Islam. The vortex of fanaticism has not left the security forces and other instruments of state untouched. How could it, considering that it was the security establishment itself that fanned the flames of fanaticism in pursuit of its political and foreign policy objectives. To expect the same security forces to now recognise the danger of radicalism and put the genie back in the bottle is utterly delusional.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>What has contributed to the unbridled rise in power and influence of the Islamists is absence of a convincing and credible religious and ideological narrative that can counter the Islamists. The best that the so-called moderates can come up with is that the fundamentalists do not represent the 'silent majority', something that has been proved by the consistently poor performance of religious parties in successive elections. But as Hajrah Mumtaz writes: the phrase 'silent majority' in Pakistan can only be used in the context of its original meaning — it originates from Homer's Odyssey, and refers to the dead who are in the majority as compared to the living...if Pakistan has a 'silent majority at all, it is in this manner". What the 'moderates' cannot or don't want to understand is that the extremists don't need to win a majority in Parliament to push for what they want; they can easily force their way through the use of their street power and firepower. The reality of Pakistan is that even without a single seat in Parliament, the fundamentalists hold a veto over any and every progressive measure that the government might want to take. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Take for instance the issue of amending the procedure of the blasphemy law to prevent its abuse. If even the 'enlightened moderate' regime of the former military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf was unable to make the smallest of procedural changes in the blasphemy law, what are the odds of the current crop of 'empowered' politicians doing the same, assuming they find the courage to even attempt such an amendment? In any case, the problem is not so much with the blasphemy law itself as it is with the society's attitude towards someone accused under the law. No sooner is someone accused of blasphemy, the person is condemned regardless of the existence or otherwise of any intent, let alone evidence, of having committed blasphemy. Even if the courts acquit someone – a rarity given that the judges are either too scared or too Islamised to do so – the people take it upon themselves to kill the person. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The point therefore is that unless this attitude, rather mindset, changes, no amendment in the procedure of the law will make a whit of a difference to those wrongly accused of blasphemy. By concentrating only on the inequities of the blasphemy law, the Pakistani moderates, as also the rest of the world, are missing the woods for the trees. The real battle to be fought is the one against radical Islamic thought and not for some minor changes in law. But this is a battle that has still not been joined in any serious and sustained manner and might have already been lost. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <1510 Words> 14<sup>th</sup> January, 2011<br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-6073256061526476512011-01-08T02:02:00.001-08:002011-01-08T02:02:39.463-08:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>NEED FOR A COMPOSITE BACK CHANNEL WITH PAKISTAN ARMY<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: center'><strong>By<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: center'><strong>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: justify'> One of the most vexing and intractable foreign policy issues dogging India has been the bilateral relationship with Pakistan. Over the last six decades, a lot of effort has been expended on working out a modus Vivendi with Pakistan, but in the face of implacable hostility and unrelenting irredentism from Pakistan, all the initiatives taken by India have so far come to nought. After 26/11, India and Pakistan have once again reached a dead-end of sorts with public opinion in India inimical to any political or diplomatic initiative by the government to try and improve relations with Pakistan. But unless India has decided to turn its back on Pakistan and behave, even wish, as though Pakistan has ceased to exist, such an attitude would appear to be unsustainable. Worse, this attitude is also untenable because it is not the result of a conscious policy or strategic game plan, but is borne out of a lot of pique, some prejudice, a degree of pugnacity and of course domestic political compulsions. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Restarting a dialogue with Pakistan is however easier said than done, more so when there is a civilian government in office but the Pakistan army is in charge. This is a problem for the Indian political and permanent establishment, which despite being aware of the power realities in Pakistan, balks at the idea of entering into any separate or direct dialogue with the Pakistan army. In other words, while India can countenance a dialogue with the 'puppets', it is averse to talking to the 'puppeteers'. The resistance to opening a dialogue with the Pakistan army would be understandable if it was part of a well thought out strategy to alter the internal dynamics of Pakistan's power structure – drive a wedge between the political and military establishment in Pakistan and eventually end the preponderant power and influence that the generals wield in the politics of the country as well as sideline them from exercising a veto power on relations with India. But clearly, this strategy is a non-starter because the Pakistani political establishment has outsourced, rather abdicated, the country's India policy to the army and now tows the line set by the army. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>To be sure, India's reluctance to engage the Pakistan army is morally correct and principled. But it goes against the basic principles of realpolitik, more so when self-proclaimed standard bearers of 'democracy' and 'freedom' don't bat an eyelid while mollycoddling Pakistani dictators, or doing business with the chief of the Pakistan army even though a civilian government is in office. The Indian distaste for opening a dialogue with the Pakistan army makes even less sense considering that India has never refused to engage military regimes in Pakistan, following the principle that it would deal with whoever was in power. Why then the resistance today to deal only with the de jure power (civilian government) and not the de facto power (army) in Pakistan? Not to put too fine point on it, in Pakistan if you win over the army, everything else falls into place, more or less. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>While India's antipathy towards the Pakistan army is quite natural, the absence of a credible interlocutor in Pakistan who can exercise effective control over the Pakistan army leaves India with little choice except to open a parallel dialogue with the military establishment in Pakistan. The Indian policy of developing closer people-to-people relationships as a means to make a breakthrough in the bilateral relationship is unlikely to ever work. The manner in which the entire progress made on the people-to-people front between 2004 and 2008 was practically overnight reduced to nothing after the 26/11 terrorist strike in Mumbai should be proof enough that when it comes to India-Pakistan relations, the people tend to follow the line set by their establishments. In order words, people-to-people relations flower when the establishment allows them, and they wither away when the establishment shuts the door on them.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>It is even more futile to depend on the so-called civil society of Pakistan for raising a constituency of peace. For one, what goes as civil society in Pakistan is really a fringe group and constitutes around a 1000 people, and if you want to be very charitable then the number can be raised to 5000. This is not to belittle the commitment, conviction and courage of some of the members of civil society in promoting and propagating the cause of normalisation of relations with India. But at the end of the day, despite their visibility and volubility, how many army divisions or jihadists or even votes do these people control? <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Interestingly, in trying to engage the Pakistan army, India doesn't even have to take the initiative; it just has to respond to overtures that the Pakistan army already appears to be making. Over the last few months, enough hints have been dropped by Pakistan's military establishment of their desire to deal directly with the Indian establishment. There are some reports, albeit unconfirmed, of a meeting between the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad and the Pakistan army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. The ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha has met the Indian armed forces representatives posted in the High Commission in Islamabad and is believed to have conveyed to them that India needs to talk directly with the Pakistan army. There are also some suggestions (straws in the wind actually) that the Pakistan army is opening up to the idea of working with India on Afghanistan. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Indications of the Pakistan army's willingness to engage with their opposite numbers in the Indian establishment have also come from the gestures made by the Pakistan army – for instance, Pasha attending an Iftar party thrown by the Indian High Commissioner, the ISI hosting farewell parties for some Indian defence advisors who were returning to India after completing their tenures in Islamabad, the Indian defence advisors being invited to attend the passing out parade at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul. For its part, the Indian establishment has been reciprocating the gestures from the Pakistan military establishment and has invited the head of the National Defence University in Islamabad, a serving Lt. Gen., to India. But until now, no decision has been taken to engage the Pakistan army in a serious, sustained manner. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>There are of course a whole lot of counter-signals also being received that suggest that the Pakistan army has restarted the jihad factory directed against India. Many of the jihadist outfits that had been forced to go underground have started resurfacing and are openly preaching violence against India. Pakistan's Taliban proxies are targeting Indian interests, workers and projects in Afghanistan. The ISI has been once again tried to reignite the insurgency in Kashmir by coordinating the actions of the agent provocateurs and funding the unrest in the Kashmir valley last summer. None other than Gen. Ashfaq Kayani has made no bones about the fact that the Pakistan army remains India-centric and cannot ignore or neglect the threat it perceives from its eastern front regardless of the deterioration in the situation on the western front. The ratcheting up of the anti-India propaganda by the so-called 'independent' media in Pakistan is yet another pointer to direction in which the wind is blowing inside Pakistan. And, if there were still any doubts, the rise in anti-India rhetoric of the Pakistan foreign office, especially from the foreign minister, should clinch the argument that the process of normalisation of relations between the two countries has regressed significantly. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>But these negative signals are precisely the reason why it is so important for India to engage with Pakistan army. That the Pakistan army and Gen. Ashfaq Kayani don't like, much less trust, India is a sentiment that India reciprocates in full measure, and perhaps with far greater justification and reason. But what India is unable to understand fully is what is prompting Kayani's anti-Indiaism. Is it a religious, or even a civilizational, hang-up? Or does it arise out of a genuine sense of insecurity from India? And is there any way that India can address this anti-Indiaism without in any way compromising on its security preparedness and its territorial unity, integrity and sovereignty? Similarly, there is a lot that Pakistan needs to do to reassure India and address its security concerns, and a dialogue with the Pakistan army can become a useful forum in finding a redressal to these problems.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Advocation of open lines of communication with the Pakistan army doesn't in any way mean letting down the guard or dropping 'assets' and 'leverages' that India might have built inside Pakistan (as had been done in the past by so many Indian Prime Ministers, including Morarji Desai and IK Gujral). Nor does it mean harbouring starry-eyed notions that the Pakistan army is no longer inimical to India's security or is in the process of ending its hostility to India. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The point being made is not that there will be an end to the secret, or if you will, 'shadow' wars being fought between the two countries in different theatres; it is that in the course of engagement, the two establishments might be able to reach a better understanding of each others' concerns and might find that some of their assumptions and presumptions about each other were misplaced. There is also a possibility of breaking common ground on a range of issues and initiating a process of confidence building measures that are verifiable on the ground. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Any dialogue with the Pakistan army must, however, be held far away from the media glare, otherwise the entire effort will be rendered futile by the grandstanding that is inherent in the presence of the media. Equally important, there must be strict confidentiality about the talks because nothing kills trust more than selective and self-serving leaks to the media. The template that can be adopted is that of the the 'back-channel' that had opened up after the Islamabad meeting between Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Gen. Pervez Musharraf in 2004.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Once the decision to enter into such a dialogue is taken, there will arise the question as to who from India's side will talk to the Pakistan army, especially since the Indian Army, by no stretch of imagination, occupies the same position in the Indian power structure as the Pakistan army does in Pakistan. Similarly, in terms of the power it wields, the Indian external intelligence agency RAW cannot be put on the same pedestal as the ISI. One way out of this is to adopt a multi-track approach, a sort of 'composite back-channel' in which the intelligence agencies comprise one track, the military leaders another track in which they discuss military and security related matters, a third track can discuss larger strategic perceptions, outlooks and assessments. All these various tracks can then provide inputs to the political back-channel. To start with, the discussions in these various tracks can be unstructured and, if necessary, can be held in some third country. <br /></p><p>The question whether will such a composite back channel between the security establishments of the two countries work is hardly important. Having tried everything else, this is probably the only thing that is left to be tried. If it works, the prospects for normalization of relations will brighten; if it doesn't, neither country will have lost anything.</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-88217887274682236122010-12-23T07:16:00.001-08:002010-12-23T07:16:35.343-08:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>A GAME THEORY FOR PAKISTANI POLITICS<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> With the exit from the government of the Maulana Fazlur Rehman led faction of the Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUIF), the perpetually buffeted – by an overbearing military, an hyper active and interventionist judiciary, a hostile media and fickle and demanding allies – PPP-led coalition government in Pakistan is facing yet another bout of instability. The wily Maulana has walked out of the coalition at a time when it was contending with multiple crises. Not surprisingly, questions have once again been raised questions over the survivability of the government, more so because another crucial coalition partner, MQM, is literally straining at the leash to break away from the coalition. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Adding to the troubles of the government is the coalescing of the opposition parties, and some members of the ruling coalition, against the Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST) bill that the government must get passed through parliament to get the next tranche of the Structural Adjustment loan from the IMF. The failure to impose the RGST could lead to a drying up of the aid tap. It is feared that the economic meltdown and hyper inflation that will result if aid flow stops might unleash large scale street disturbances and economic rioting that will almost certainly have an impact on the political system in the country. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> At a time when Pakistan is staring down the edge of an abyss, it is saddled with a government that is perceived to be both horrendously corrupt and astoundingly incompetent, and therefore increasingly untenable. An impression that the current government's days are numbered has been steadily gaining currency. Going by recent historical record, the life of an elected government is generally around three years, and if history is any guide to future then the PPP government has almost reached its sell-by date. But while all the signs on the ground and reports in the media would suggest that the government is on its way out, the problem is that despite predictions of mortality of the regime for nearly a year and a half now, the government has managed to survive. Therefore, as things stand, there is no simple answer to the question of whether the government will collapse or will survive for some more time, and perhaps even complete its full term in office. An educated guess of the future trajectory of Pakistani politics can be, however, made with the help of what can be called the game theory of Pakistani politics. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> The political game in Pakistan has an iron law – actually a paradox – according to which the stronger a government, the more vulnerable it is and greater the chances of its ouster because of a crisis; conversely, a weak and tottering government is actually stronger, not so much in terms of its ability to govern or deliver but in terms of its chances of survival in office. 'Strong' civilian governments in Pakistan, which appear to have covered all their bases and tied up all the loose ends that could unravel their hold on power, invariably tend to overplay their hand. This invites a reaction from opponents who defend their interests by acting either alone or in concert with other affected players. Weak governments, on the other hand, are always compromising and giving in to pulls and pressures in order to survive. Plus, they are not considered a threat by the other players who want such governments to continue as long as they have not tied up other loose ends of their political game plan. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Of course, there are some complexities in this iron law which add to the difficulties in making the right call on the longevity of a government, especially a civilian government, in Pakistan. One complexity arises from the multitude of players in the political game – Pakistan army, major political parties and personalities, judiciary, and the US; while some analysts would count the media as an important player, the reality is that the media is nothing more than a comprador, manipulated and misused by the major players for their objectives. The political calculations made by the main players, either individually or in conjunction with other players, and the decisions they take on the basis of these calculations can complicate the outcome of the game. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The other complexity is the perception factor. If the perception is that the government is weak and can be brought down easily, there is little incentive for the other players to pull it down, at least not until they have got what they wanted either from the government or from the situation that exists on the ground. The perception of a weak government leads to a situation that gives rise to a counter perception that the government is here to stay, i.e. 'a strong government'. But the moment a government is seen to be a 'strong government', the anti-forces create conditions and hatch 'conspiracies' to pull it down. If the anti-forces succeed, the government falls; but even if they fail, they end up weakening the government to a point where it is seen as a pushover and not a threat to any of the other main players. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>While factors like political and constitutional circumstances, political skill and wild cards (natural disasters, accidents, sudden death of an important player etc.) also play an important role as swing factors, their real significance lies in their role as inputs that change the perceptions of the major players and thereby their calculations and decisions. Ultimately, whether or not a government survives becomes a function of the combination of the perceptions and calculations of the players and the interplay of interests and insecurities of the players. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>A classical manifestation of the theory outlined above is the current state of politics in Pakistan. The incumbent government is arguably one of the weakest governments that Pakistan has seen and yet it has managed to defy the odds and held on to office by riding out all the political storms. Compared to the 'strong' regimes like those of Nawaz Sharif and Gen Musharraf which were unable to survive the major crises that confronted them – Kargil in the case of Nawaz Sharif and the dismissal of the chief justice and the lawyers' movement in the case of Musharraf, the Zardari led dispensation has lurched from one major crises to another, but survived for far longer than anyone had ever imagined when the hostile propaganda spearheaded by the malleable media started around a year and a half back. So much so, that until a few weeks back the anti-forces had become so disheartened that they were forced to concede that the Zardari regime is here to stay i.e. it is much stronger than the perception. But as soon as the perception of 'strong' government started doing the rounds, a new set of crises erupted which threaten the survival of the government. In other words, while the hostile media campaign did weaken the government, this weakness helped it survive; on the other hand, when the media projected the government as unshakeable, at least for the time being, it suddenly started getting jolts from all sides.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Admittedly, the government has been helped by a set of fortuitous circumstances – no acceptable alternative to the incumbent, constitutional complexities in derailing the political system, disturbed internal security situation that militates against any move that disturbs or destabilises the political scene, the support of the US for the government, the unwillingness of Nawaz Sharif to take any precipitate political action that could easily end up derailing once again the parliamentary system, Asif Zardari's ability to roll with the blows, and retreat to fight another day, as also his deft political moves to disarm his opponents (by reaching out to them and offering them concessions and rewards) and exploit their differences with each other to prevent them from ganging up against him. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Even so, the ruling coalition is so fragile that it can be ousted without much trouble. But this is precisely why there doesn't seem to be any great urgency to get rid of the government. In other words, the government is going nowhere just yet, at least not until the other players decide that the time has come for its ouster. The day such a decision is taken – either because the interests of the other players (especially the army) mandates toppling the government, or because the drift in governance brings the country to the brink of collapse and chaos and necessitates a military intervention – the government will collapse in a matter of days. But until that day, it serves the interest of all the players in Pakistan's political game to keep this government in place and extract concessions that further their personal and political interests, let the government earn opprobrium for tough and unpopular decisions, and after having milked the PPP-led coalition for what it is worth, dump it. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <1470 Words> 23<sup>rd</sup> December, 2010<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-76295516904294227052010-12-18T01:57:00.001-08:002010-12-18T01:57:51.778-08:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>PIPEDREAMS ABOUT PIPELINES<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> The superlatives being attributed to the signing of the Inter-Government Agreement (IGA) and the Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement (GPFA) for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline appear rather farfetched especially when seen in light of the obstacles that stand in the way of implementing this mega-project. On paper, the benefits of the TAPI pipeline are undeniable for all the countries that fall in the route of the pipeline. But political and strategic considerations on the one hand and economic factors like gas price, transportation, taxation and transit fees, security of supply etc. on the other hand are together unlikely to let this project ever become a reality. Unless these obstacles are removed, the fate of the TAPI pipeline proposal won't be very different from that of the much vaunted Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Unlike the IPI project, the TAPI has certain advantages. For one, there is no opposition to it from the US and its allies. If anything, the West has been pushing for the project as an alternative to the IPI pipeline, more so in the wake of 9/11 after the US forces entered Afghanistan. But even during the Taliban era, the US oil major UNOCAL was pitching for the Turkmen pipeline project and was involved in a rather murky competition with an Argentine company Bridas for the pipeline contract. After the Taliban regime was toppled, the project was once again revived when in 2002 an IGA and GPFA were signed between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan to build what was then known as the TAP pipeline. But soon it became clear that the pipeline would not be economically viable without including India in it. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>To rope in India, the Asian Development Bank was brought in. For India the project held both economic advantage (cheap and abundant energy supply which would bridge the future gas demand and supply gap in India) as well as diplomatic benefit (a symbol of regional cooperation, an affirmation of India's commitment to rebuilding of Afghanistan and as a means to become an important player in the energy sector in Central Asian states). With the West supporting the project, finding the funding the project and the companies for implementing it will be a cakewalk, something that is not the case with the IPI where international companies and financial institutions would risk US sanctions by dealing with Iran. But these positives are far outweighed by the negative factors associated with the project that could prevent it from getting off the ground. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Although India has signed the new IGA and GPFA, there are a large number of critical issues that will need to be sorted out before India signs the all important Gas Sale and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) which will decide the techno-economic issues like route of pipeline, price of gas, security of supply, fixing liability in the event of disruption of supply etc. So far the only issue that has been resolved is that of the availability of gas in the South Yoloten-Osman gasfield which has replaced the Daulatabad gasfield that had been earmarked in 2002 and on which there were serious questions being raised over the size of gas reserves. But without complete satisfaction on all the other issues outlined above, which will involve torturously long and detailed negotiations that can take a year or more, the work on the pipeline project cannot start. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Under the GPFA that India has signed, India will be buying the gas on the Turkmen border and then handing it over to the consortium to transport it to the Indian border where it will take the delivery of the gas. This is a totally untenable proposition unless accompanied by iron-cast guarantees on safe passage of gas and provisions for compensation to India in the event of disruption of supply. There will also be issues regarding the fixation of transit fees and transportation costs that will be charged by Afghanistan and Pakistan which will need to be thrashed out before the pipeline is constructed and the gas starts flowing. If the IPI is anything to go by, where the Pakistanis asked for ridiculously high transit fees from India, then India could easily lose interest in the TAPI project. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Even if the techno-economic issues are sorted out and adequate safeguards are built into the GSPA to India's satisfaction, there are very major political and strategic challenges that will have to be surmounted for the TAPI pipeline to see the light of the day. While the Americans are backing the project and see it not only as an important component in rebuilding Afghanistan but also for strengthening their hold over the Central Asian energy sector which is currently dominated by the Russians and which is being keenly eyed by the Chinese, their timing has gone horribly wrong. Perhaps if the project had been implemented in 2003-04 when the Islamist terrorism in Afpak region was in retreat, it would have served as a monument to a new Afghanistan. But since that time, the security situation has regressed enormously with the resurgence of the Taliban / Al Qaeda terrorists. What makes the pipeline project appears even more undoable is the fact that the proposed route of the pipeline will run through the Taliban heartland of South Afghanistan. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> The project will also have to contend with withdrawal of at least the bulk of the NATO forces from Afghanistan by 2014. With the construction of the pipeline not likely to start before 2012-13, by which time the drawdown of NATO troops would have commenced, a huge shadow of uncertainty hangs over the entire project. With the security situation expected to deteriorate, it would almost certainly militate against the construction of the pipeline. Of course, the incumbent Afghan government has been promising adequate security to the pipeline and has pledged to dedicate around 7000-8000 troops to guard the pipeline. But to rely on the assurances of a government whose writ doesn't even run in Kabul for providing security to the pipeline would be quite foolhardy. The only way for the pipeline to come up would be if it gets security guarantees from the Taliban. But would India like to be part of a project that becomes a milch cow for the Islamist terror groups? <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> It would be equally reckless on India's part to depend on a hostile and increasingly unstable Pakistan to provide security to the pipeline or even to live up to its commitment to prevent any disruption in supplies. In this context, it may be recalled that in attempting to convince India to join the IPI project in the mid 1990s the then Pakistani president told the Indian High Commissioner that even in event of a war between India and Pakistan the disruption of supplies would not be for more than a couple of weeks because that is how long the two countries could fight! <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The proponents and supporters of the TAPI project also make the argument that the international binding agreements that will govern the pipeline project will force Pakistan to ensure gas supply to India. But a compelling counter argument is that these international agreements will not be worth the paper they are written on if Pakistan implodes or descends into chaos and anarchy or comes under the sway of jihadist forces, as increasingly appears likely. Even if such a drastic fate was not to befall Pakistan, it will be of little comfort to India. Given the flagrant violation by Pakistan of all international agreements, treaties and conventions against export of terror to its neighbours and rest of the world, and its audacious support, sustenance and sanctuary to Islamist terror groups in defiance of the international pressure, who can guarantee that Pakistan will honour international commitments and obligations on uninterrupted gas supply to India? <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Asides of Pakistan's natural proclivity for thumbing its nose at international norms of behaviour, there is also a possibility that Pakistan might use the gas line as a lever against India to prevent the hydropower projects being constructed in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. And if Pakistan does resort to such disruptions, the costs in terms of loss of production of units that depend on the Turkmen gas would balance out any benefit that India hopes to derive from the project.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>It is not as if all these factors have not been taken into account by the Indian government. But if despite these factors India has joined the TAPI pipeline then it is because, for now at least, India is 'stringing along' the other countries involved in the TAPI project. The objective is to not to be excluded out if the pipeline ever gets built. At the same time, India is neither pinning any hopes nor planning its growth strategy on the gas that may or may not flow through the TAPI pipeline. In other words, there are no pipedreams in India about the pipelines. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <1480 Words> 16<sup>th</sup> December, 2010<br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-77204401915922636772010-11-26T09:16:00.001-08:002010-11-26T09:16:32.521-08:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>26/11: TWO YEARS ON, BARBARIANS EXULT AS JUSTICE ELUDES</strong><br /> </p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Two years after the barbaric mass murder of innocent people in Mumbai, justice has continued to elude the families of victims. The Pakistani perpetrators, masterminds and sponsors of the 26/11 attacks are either openly strutting about the streets of Pakistani cities or are enjoying a rest and recreation break behind prison walls, secure in the knowledge that the faux trials in Pakistani courts will end in a predictable manner – i.e. with their acquittal. Not that all this comes as a surprise. Given the complicity of the Pakistani state (read army and intelligence agencies) in the attacks, the prosecution of the people arrested in Pakistan was never going to be anything more than an eyewash. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Within hours of the arrest of Ajmal Kasab, one of the ten terrorists who attacked Mumbai, the Indian security agencies had got enough information to pin the blame for the attack on the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Despite knowing of the links between the LeT and the ISI – the former being a virtual paramilitary force of the Pakistan army – the Indian government tried to give the benefit of doubt to the Pakistani state by talking of the involvement of 'elements within the Pakistani establishment'. Had the Pakistani state not been involved in planning and provisioning and providing training for the attacks, it would have grabbed the opening given by India to bring the guilty to justice. That this has not happened coupled with the fact that all efforts have been made by the 'deep state' of Pakistan to delay the trials of arrested people is irrefutable evidence of the participation of the state machinery and agencies in the entire macabre episode.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Even the trial which is underway in Pakistani courts against six of the accused was the result of the enormous international pressure that was put on Pakistan by Western countries whose nationals were murdered by the Pakistani terrorists in Mumbai. But apart from Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Zarrar Shah, the other under-trials are mere foot-soldiers, and almost all the main masterminds like Sajid Mir, Abu Qafa and others whose names have been revealed by David Headley have got away scot free. As far as the trial itself is concerned, there are serious questions being raised over the seriousness and sincerity with which it is being conducted. Given that the trial is being conducted in camera, there is a veil of secrecy over it. Even the charge-sheet and the evidence that has been produced by the Pakistani authorities is unknown. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> All assurances given by the Pakistani authorities on bringing the guilty to justice have been violated. Take for instance the assurance given by Pakistan's interior minister to the Indian home minister on the issue of providing voice samples of some of the masterminds. Six months after Rehman Malik gave a solemn assurance, not one step has been taken in this direction. Meanwhile, the Pakistani authorities have tried to complicate the trial by sending one dossier after another seeking more information from India on the attacks. Given that the Mumbai terrorists were in constant communication with their masters in Pakistan for nearly 72 hours while the horror was playing out in front of TV screens across the world, surely the Pakistani intelligences would have got a fix on the people sitting in Pakistan who were issuing instructions to the terrorists. But so far there is total silence on this count. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Most of the information sought in the dossiers sent by Pakistan is either totally irrelevant or a clumsy effort to deflect, dilate and thereby delay the investigation. Worse, the questions are more in the nature of a phishing expedition to try and ferret out the depth and if possible source of information that the Indian security agencies have gathered so that next time around the Pakistani can take care to cover their tracks. But even as the Pakistanis try to cover the tracks of their auxiliaries who carried out the attacks, explosive new information and revelations have come pouring out. The interrogation of the Pakistani-origin terrorist, David Headley aka Dawood Gilani, has implicated the ISI and LeT, including some senior serving officers of the Pakistan army, including the ISI chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha who is supposed to have visited Lakhvi in prison. Small wonder then, that the Pakistan state continues to be in complete denial and resorting to lies and obfuscation to protect its jihadis – uniformed and in mufti. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Forget about taking action against the masterminds, the Pakistani government and agencies have allowed the organisation that carried out the attacks to operate openly. Despite a ban being imposed on the Lashkar-e-Taiba and its front organisation Jamaatud Dawa, these groups enjoy complete impunity to carry out their murderous trade of collecting funds, operating training camps, making hate speeches and recruiting jihadist cadres. So much so that the so-called civil society of Pakistan feels no compunctions in inviting the head of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hafiz Saeed, to give a talk, as was done by the Lahore High Court Bar Association some days ago.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>In spite of the stonewalling on action against the terrorists, Pakistan is audacious enough to call for talks with India and asking India to not become hostage to a single incident. It is almost as though the Pakistanis want India to forget that 26/11 ever happened. Normally it is not a bad idea to move on and put the past behind. But in the case of Pakistan, every time India has tried to put the past behind and move on to normalise relations, the past has inevitably repeated itself. Take for instance the train bombings in Mumbai in 2006. India did move on and what happened? 26/11. Perhaps if India was to now forget 26/11 and move on, it would be followed by another such spectacular attack. Clearly then, India must draw a red line now. Not doing so and re-engaging Pakistan without the perpetrators and masterminds of 26/11 being punished would amount to inviting Pakistan to launch more such attacks. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> More than anything else, the 26/11 attacks which have scarred the Indian psyche, need to be used both to build up an impregnable and uncompromising internal security architecture as well as developing instruments to deter and if necessary inflict unacceptable damage on the country that sponsors and supports terrorist activities in India. To do so India needs to bring into play all the components of national power – overt and covert, economic and military, conventional and sub-conventional, diplomatic and political – to protect the lives and properties of its citizens. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <1090 Words> 26<sup>th</sup> November, 2010<br /></p><p>********************************************************************* </p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-83705936118788998132010-11-19T05:32:00.001-08:002010-11-19T05:32:07.918-08:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>COLD START AS A DETERRENCE AGAINST PROXY WAR</strong><br /> </p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> For some months now, the Indian Army's 'Cold Start' (CS) doctrine has been attracting a lot of attention from Western diplomats, generals and political leaders. The reason is simple: the Pakistanis, who were reluctant to move against their 'strategic assets' (aka Taliban and Al Qaeda affiliates like Lashkar-e-Taiba), have self-servingly flagged this doctrine as proof of India's hostile and aggressive design. Waving the 'threat' from India, the Pakistan Army has been resisting pressure from the West to redeploy troops from the eastern border to the western front. The gullible Westerners appear to have bought the Pakistani line and are seeking to persuade India to renounce the CS doctrine. This, the Westerners believe, is the magic bullet to address Pakistan's sense of insecurity and allow the Pakistan Army to move against terrorist safe havens inside Pakistani territory.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> How much the CS doctrine has spooked the Pakistani is clear from the statements of the Pakistani political leaders and military generals. Addressing senior officers in the GHQ on 1<sup>st</sup> January, the Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani called the CS doctrine "an adventurous and dangerous path". He flogged this theme during his talk at the NATO headquarters in Brussels and later in a meeting with Pakistani journalists where he showed deep concern over the Indian Army's preparations for making the CS doctrine operational. Taking the cue from him, the National Command Authority of Pakistan issued a statement in which it said that an "offensive doctrines like Cold Start...tend to destabilise the regional balance". The Azm-e-Nau military exercises, held in April-May this year, were primarily aimed at countering the CS strategy of the Indian army. Completely at a loss to understand Pakistan's recalcitrance over acting against Islamist terror groups, the West appears to have latched on to the Pakistan's India bogey as a possible solution to end the Pakistani double-game in the war on terror. Hence, the efforts to try and make India back off from the CS strategy. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The problem, however, is that no amount of disavowals by India, and no amount of security assurances by the US or other Western nations, will ever convince Pakistan, which has been badly rattled by the CS doctrine, that India's basic defence posture is defensive in nature and orientation. Despite the Indian army chief Gen. VK Singh denying the existence of any such doctrine, the CS strategy has acquired a life of its own in the Pakistani military mind. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Come to think of if, this is probably not such a bad thing from India's point of view. Even as strategists debate over the practicality or otherwise of the concept of a limited war under a nuclear overhang and the CS doctrine as a military strategy – after all, the battleground has a nasty habit of springing surprises that can ground the most well-prepared battle plans – the doctrine's validity has been confirmed by Pakistan's frenetic efforts to put in place a counter strategy. That the Pakistan army is preparing to counter the CS by its conventional forces and not through use of nuclear weapons is a tacit acceptance of both the theory of limited war under a nuclear overhang as well as the exploitation of this strategic space through the device of CS doctrine. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>More important, however, has been the utility of the CS doctrine as a tool of psy-war. Not only has it unsettled the adversary, it has also put in place an effective deterrent against the proxy war unleashed by Pakistan-sponsored terror groups in India. In other words, Pakistan can no longer be sure on whether or not India will resort to lightening strikes across the border in response to actions by Pakistani terror groups inside India. The prospect of sudden retaliation by India effectively means that the impunity with which Pakistan was exporting terror to India is in grave danger. Perhaps this is one of the major reasons why there has been no major terrorist attack in India since 26/11. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> But the utility of CS as a deterrent to sub-conventional warfare or proxy warfare depends in large measure on the credibility of the deterrent. In a sense, the dynamics and dialectics of a sub-conventional deterrence like CS are no different from those of nuclear deterrence. As and when India effectively operationalises the CS doctrine, it will have to ensure that the adversary knows the resolve of the Indian state to implement this strategy in response to another major terrorist strike. This is critical to prevent any miscalculation or misreading by Pakistan of India's resolve. While the retaliation doesn't have to be immediate – to quote Mario Puzo "revenge is a dish that tastes best when it is cold" – any failure by India to resort to CS in response to a terror attack supported, inspired or originating from Pakistan will degrade the value of the deterrence. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>It is in this sense that the CS doctrine is a double-edged weapon for both India and Pakistan. To retain credibility India will have to retaliate militarily using the CS strategy, otherwise not only will India loses all credibility, it will embolden Pakistan to continue to unleash jihadist terror on India. But retaliation will put India on the escalation ladder which could easily go beyond the parameters of scope and scale of CS operations. The big unknown is that with sub-conventional deterrence in the form of CS doctrine breaking down, how much time and what level of desperation of either party will force them to take the next escalatory step which in turn could lead to making real the spectre of a nuclear exchange in the subcontinent.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>To an extent, the escalation ladder will depend on how Pakistan responds to a CS by India. The dilemma for Pakistan will be that if it doesn't respond with its nuclear weapons, it will not only validate India's belief of space for a limited war under a nuclear overhang but more seriously, rob Pakistan of its nuclear deterrent, if only in the context of a limited war. In other words, Pakistan will face a Hobson's choice: it can either degrade the quality of its nuclear deterrent or it can unleash a nuclear holocaust which will not only wipe it out but wreck horrendous damage on India and indeed on rest of the world. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> As long as the sub-conventional deterrence holds, the enunciation of the Cold Start doctrine actually introduces a degree of strategic stability in the region by forcing Pakistan to exercise extreme caution in unleashing terrorist violence in India. Far from asking India to renounce the CS doctrine or put it in the cold storage, the West needs to impress upon Pakistan that it can no longer expect India to roll over and play dead in response to actions of terror groups based inside Pakistan. If Pakistan stops using terror as an instrument of state policy, the CS strategy will stay in the cold storage. Otherwise, all bets are off. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <1150 Words> 19<sup>th</sup> November, 2010<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p><br /> </p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-61505359318207007422010-11-12T02:19:00.001-08:002010-11-12T02:19:09.843-08:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>INDIA, US AND THE 'P' WORD<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: center'><strong>By<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><strong> </strong>Try as it might, India just doesn't seem to be able to get over its much disliked hyphenation with Pakistan. Even when the 'hyphenators' make a studied effort to avoid hyphenating India with Pakistan, the Indians seem hell bent on raising the 'P' word and descending back into the quagmire in which it had been enmeshed for better part of the last six decades. This needless obsession with Pakistan came tumbling out during the visit of the US President Barack Obama. Until Obama backed Indian claim for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, it almost appeared as though Pakistan was the biggest agenda item in the US-India summit. Everything else - defence deals and compact on fighting terrorism through intelligence sharing, capacity building and technology transfers, investment and trade pacts, cooperation in space and education, collaboration on energy, health and environmental issues, easing of the technology denial regime, support for India's membership to groups like the NSG, Australia group and Wassenaar group, India's role in East Asia and Afghanistan – seemed to recede into the background.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> This is not to deny that Pakistan's relentless use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy poses a big threat to peace and security in the region and as such is a matter of serious concern to India which has faced the brunt of Pakistan's export of terrorism. It is also true that post 26/11, a lot has changed in India as far as Pakistani sponsored terrorism is concerned. Indeed, India is on a short fuse, and to the extent that this sentiment was conveyed to the Americans in full measure, the outcry in the media over Obama's nuanced approach towards Pakistan served the purpose. But to expect the US president to indulge in unrestrained 'Paki-bashing' while he was on Indian soil was trifle unrealistic. Not only is the US dependent on Pakistan for its logistics lines to Afghanistan, it also harbours fond hopes of the Pakistan army putting an end to the sanctuary and support it is giving to the Taliban/Al Qaeda insurgents fighting against the ISAF forces in Afghanistan. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> It was not as if Obama glossed over Pakistan's complicity in terrorism, only his subtlety was lost on his hosts. After all, by staying in the Taj Mahal hotel and addressing the Indian and American CEOs at the Trident, Obama had sent out a strong and unmistakable message against terrorists and their patrons. While his not blaming or naming Pakistan for its involvement in the 26/11 attacks could be compared to someone paying tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks without condemning Al Qaeda, Obama made suitable amends for this oversight later on during the visit. The Joint Statement not only calls for "elimination of safe havens and infrastructure for terrorism and violent extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan" but also states that "all terrorist networks, including Lashkar e-Taiba, must be defeated" and Pakistan must "bring to justice the perpetrators of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks."<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> If what Obama said on terrorism must have sounded jarring to the Pakistanis, he would have added injury to insult by what he did not say – the 'K' word – at least not in the way the Pakistanis expected or hoped. If anything, Obama's take on resolving the Kashmir issue was almost entirely in sync with India's position. Although Obama offered to "play any role that the parties think is appropriate", he was quite candid in stating that "the United States cannot impose a solution to these problems". His endorsement of the Indian line that talks between Indian and Pakistan should first concentrate on building confidence before they grapple with an issue like Kashmir should have dashed the desperate efforts of the Pakistanis to try and convince the Americans that the road to Kabul went through Kashmir. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> It is actually quite bizarre for a Pakistan which is on the verge of an economic and political meltdown and is dependent on handouts from the West to meet its day-to-day expenses to expect the US or other Western countries to lean upon India to appease Pakistan. After all, if these countries haven't been able to stop the double-game being played by a tottering Pakistan, how delusional is it for the Pakistanis to imagine that these countries can pressure a rising (if you accept Obama's hyperbole, then 'risen' and 'emerged') power like India to surrender its vital interests and compromise on its territorial integrity and unity to satisfy Pakistan? <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Contributing to the failure of the Pakistani gambit to link Kashmir with Kabul is the fact that nobody in the West seems to know what exactly India is supposed to do to assure Pakistan that India doesn't have any hostile intention towards Pakistan provided Pakistan stops sponsoring terrorism into India. Clearly, nothing short of India abandoning Kashmir to Pakistan and disbanding its army is ever likely to satisfy Pakistan. In the given situation, the choice before Pakistan is simple: either Pakistan learns to accept the realities and adjusts to them by entering into a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship with India; alternatively, it continues with its ruinous hostility towards India and consequently its slide into anarchy and bankruptcy. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Apart from the 'K' word, the Pakistanis have been raising the bogey of Indian Army's 'Cold Start doctrine' to deflect pressure on them to stop their sponsorship and support to Islamist terrorist groups and undertake military operations to wipe out the terrorist safe havens in places like North Waziristan. Rather disingenuously, the Pakistanis use the Cold Start doctrine as an excuse to avoid redeploying the troops required for draining the terror swamps in FATA and other parts of Pakistan from the eastern front with India to the troubled western borderlands. As far as India is concerned, the Cold Start doctrine's value is similar to that of the nuclear weapons. While the latter serves the purpose of deterring conventional warfare, the former appears to have been successful in deterring, or at least severely degrading, the proxy or sub-conventional war that Pakistan had been waging against India. The Cold Start doctrine will remain in the cold storage as long as Pakistan behaves; but if Pakistan continues to spawn terrorism into India, then surely it must expect retaliation, of which Cold Start is but one component. Paradoxically, far from being a destabilising factor in Indo-Pak relations, the Cold Start doctrine has actually introduced stability in the region by holding out the prospect of swift retaliation by India in the event of an audacious terror attack on Indian soil by Pakistani proxies. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>By deterring and dissuading Pakistan from adventurism by using its own national power and means holds a lesson for India. Instead on depending on the US or any other country to intercede on its behalf to make Pakistan behave, India needs to have its own game plan in place to protect itself from malign actions of its adversaries. Such a plan of action must not only be centred on tackling the threat, but also on grabbing the opportunity for normal relations with countries like Pakistan, should such an opportunity present itself. In its dealing with other countries India must avoid raising the 'P' word; rather it should let other countries initiate discussions on this issue. When India mentions the 'P' word, it inadvertently hyphenates itself with Pakistan. On the other hand, if India studiously avoids mention of the 'P' word, it will be in a better position to not only dictate terms to its interlocutors when they raise the issue, but also make them see the logic and correctness of the Indian stand on the issue. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <1270 Words> 12<sup>th</sup> November, 2010<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><br /> </p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-50810610235990341842010-11-03T22:31:00.001-07:002010-11-03T22:31:56.755-07:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>FIREWALL AFPAK<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>Sushant Sareen<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> It is by now quite clear that the US and its allies have run out of ideas in Afghanistan and appear to be committing the cardinal sin of reinforcing failure in the manner in which they are pursuing the war. Simply put, right from 9/11, the Americans have been fighting the wrong war and in the wrong country. This is not to say that the ouster of the Taliban regime in 2001 was a mistake, only that it was not an end in itself. Liberating Afghanistan from the Taliban should have been only the first step in combating Islamo-fascism and terrorism that was symbolised by the Taliban / al Qaeda compact. A far bigger battle – to use Islamic terminology, Jihad-e-Akbar – was to confront the entire infrastructure (including the ideological streams) that gave rise to the forces of radical Islam. But this was a battle that was never joined, at least not in any significant manner. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Unfortunately, the Americans never seemed to realise that real problem lay in Pakistan, from where the forces of terror received support, sustenance and sanctuary, not to mention the ideological justification for jihadism. Ironically, the Americans enlisted the biggest source of jihadist terrorism – the Pakistan army – as an ally in the War on Terror. More than anything else, it is this fact that has led to a situation where the most formidable military machine that the world has ever seen is on the verge of an ignominious defeat at the hands of a rag-tag bunch of fanatics.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> As things stand, the current strategy of the Western forces in Afghanistan is not working. And yet if they are persisting with the non-strategy, it is with a hope and prayer that in a couple of years time they will have in place an effective Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) that can take over bulk of the security functions from them. If this happens, the West can drawdown their presence in Afghanistan and keep only a small force in place to assist and advice the ANA and ANP. But what if this is not how things play out? What is the fallback position? There are as yet no answers to this all-important, if troubling, question. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> One fallback position is probably the reintegration and reconciliation policy. Cut through the clap-trap, and this really means wooing the Taliban and entering into some sort of a deal with them. Here too the hope and prayer is that the Taliban agree to stick to the terms of the deal and do not try to re-impose their rule on the whole of Afghanistan. Perhaps the West can even live with this. But what they are adamant on is that the Taliban break-off their relations with the al Qaeda. But expecting the Taliban to sever their ties with al Qaeda is a delusion. The fact of the matter is that even if Mullah Omar himself agrees to expel the al Qaeda, he will be repudiated by the militant commanders who are currently fighting under his banner but who have in the last decade struck a very close relationship with the al Qaeda. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> In a recent TV interview, the former Pakistan army chief (only for a couple of hours) Gen. Ziauddin has revealed that way back in 1999 the Pakistan security forces were all set to catch Osama bin Laden. Ziauddin, who was then the chief of the ISI, has said that at that time the cabal of generals surrounding Gen. Pervez Musharraf – people like Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed and Lt. Gen. Aziz – had told him to lay off Osama because catching him would harm Pakistan's national interest. Even more important was the revelation that Mullah Omar had told Ziauddin that if he moved against Osama he will be killed by his followers. This was in 1999 when ostensibly the al Qaeda was living on Taliban mercies. Today, after a decade of fighting together against a common enemy – the West – only the most delusional mind will imagine that the Taliban will give up the al Qaeda. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> Clearly then, the reintegration and reconciliation policy has failure writ large on it. If anything, it will tantamount to defeating the very purposes for which the war was being fought. Worse, it will allow the Taliban to slide into power without, in a manner of speaking, a shot being fired. The big question then is what are the options before the US and its allies? One possible option is the 'partition plan' which has been floated by the former US ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill in his article "A de facto partition for Afghanistan". But there are serious problems with this plan.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>For one, it is unlikely if the partition plan with find favour with any of the Afghans. Whatever their differences with each other, there is hardly an Afghan, whether Pashtun or non-Pashtun, Shia or Sunni, pro or anti Taliban, who supports a partitioning of Afghanistan. Secondly, the Blackwill plan advocates partitioning Afghanistan along ethnic lines and calls upon the US to defend the predominantly non-Pashtun West and North and leave the Pashtun-dominated South and East to the depredations of the Taliban. It ignores the fact that the geographical space that the Pashtun's occupy extends beyond the Durand line in the East up till the Indus river. In other words, a Taliban dominated Pashtun entity in Afghanistan will invariably extend into the Pashtun areas under Pakistani control which constitute a natural hinterland for the Afghan Pashtuns. Effectively, Blackwill's plan will not just partition Afghanistan but could end up splitting Pakistan along the Indus, with a Taliban dominated Pashtun state (de facto if not de jure) in the North West and an independent Baloch entity coming into existence in the South West of Pakistan. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Third, a partition plan in which the US and other foreign forces will continue to be present in Afghanistan, albeit in the North and West, will continue to give the Islamists from around the world a legitimate cause to continue with their war. Fourth, a war in Afghanistan between the Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns will almost certainly destabilise Pakistan, the impact of which on regional and global security has not been catered for in the Partition plan. Fifth, a partition of Afghanistan will raise serious issues about how US will work its logistics lines for the 40,000 – 50,000 troops. While the cost of logistics for such a large force running through the Northern route will be less than the estimated $120 billion per annum being incurred presently, they will still be huge – around $ 40-50 billion. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>All that the partition plan hopes to achieve can be better obtained through a 'firewall' strategy and that too at a fraction of the cost. Under the firewall strategy, all foreign forces will pull out of the Afpak region, i.e. no boots on the ground except for a handful of military advisors and intelligence operatives. The fallout of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and eventually Pakistan, will be contained by building a massive firewall around this region so that the Islamists and their Pakistani patrons stew in their own juice. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>In large measure, parts of the firewall around Afpak are already in place; all that needs to be done is to further beef up these firewalls. On the Western side, Iran will serve as a natural firewall. Once the US quits Afghanistan and perhaps also Pakistan, the Iranians' problems with the Sunni extremist Taliban will erupt and force Iran to firewall its border with Afghanistan. In the north, the US can help the Central Asian States monetarily and technically to build up their capacity and their border defences to prevent the Islamists from entering their countries. In the east, India already has firewalled its borders with Pakistan and further efforts can be made to make the border defences foolproof. In the south is the Arabian sea where the US and India can work together to prevent the Islamists from breaking out. The aerial route can be blocked by enforcing an Iraq type no-fly zone by bringing into operation the existing UN resolutions against the Taliban. The only possible outlet will be China, which will face the dilemma of containing the Islamists who are active in Xinjiang and keeping its relationship with the West intact on the one hand and on the other hand staying true to its 'all weather friendship' with Pakistan. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Building the firewall around Afpak doesn't mean abandoning the region to the Islamists. All it means is that the Americans will fight the Islamists indirectly by backing all those forces that want to resist the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Finally, the firewall plan will build a far wider and probably more robust regional security alliance in which the burden of the US will be shared substantially by important regional players all of which will have a stake in keeping the Taliban and their virulence at bay. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>The one big advantage of the firewall plan which will follow a withdrawal of US troops in the region will be that it will free the US from its dependence on Pakistan and put an end to the Pakistani game of 'looking both ways' on the issue of Islamic terror groups. With Pakistan losing its main leverage – the logistics supply lines that run through its territory – the US will be in a far better position to dictate terms to the Pakistanis to come clean on clearing the mess. The choice before Pakistan will be clear: either they end the double game and exterminate the Taliban and other Islamist militias that they have been promoting and protecting or else they pay the price for this policy. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>*********************************************************************<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> <1610 Words> 4<sup>th</sup> November, 2010<br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-55669213678632655522010-10-30T00:13:00.001-07:002010-10-30T00:13:41.040-07:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>POLITICAL REALIGNMENTS IN PAKISTAN<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: center'><strong>The art of the impossible</strong> <br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>By<br /></p><p style='text-align: center'>SUSHANT SAREEN<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> A meeting in Lahore between the Federal Law Minister Babar Awan and the former chief minister of Punjab and PMLQ leader, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, has shaken up the political scene in Pakistan by opening up the possibility of new political alignments which had until now been dismissed as impossible. While a marriage, even if of convenience, between the beleaguered PPP and the fragmenting PMLQ, cannot be ruled out, tying the knot is easier said than done. After all, not only is a lot of bad blood between the rank and file of the PPP and PMLQ that will have to be washed away – for instance, Asif Zardari had called the PMLQ 'Qatil League' while the Chaudhry Pervez Elahi has more then held PPP responsible for the break-up of Pakistan – there is also a big ideological barrier that will have to be crossed before the two parties can jump into bed with each other. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>If the leadership of the two parties can manage the glaring contradictions that militate against an alliance between them, it will lead to far-reaching changes in the political power structure inside the country, not just in the centre but also in Punjab and Sindh. It is of course another matter altogether whether these changes will lead to greater political stability or if it will become the precursor to greater instability. But even if the meeting between Awan (clearly acting on behalf of Asif Zardari) and Elahi doesn't lead to anything more than an exchange of views over a cup of tea, it will have achieved a major objective: signalling that the PPP has a range of options which it can exercise if it is pushed against the wall, either by its allies like MQM or by its opponents like PMLN.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'> The immediate provocation for the PPP to open channels of communication with the PMLQ was the steady hardening of opposition by the PMLN and the restiveness of the MQM which had almost quit the coalition before Asif Zardari managed to pull them back. There was a growing sense within the PPP that the MQM was no longer a reliable ally and that alternatives to the MQM had to be worked out so that in the event of a pullout by the MQM, the coalition at the centre would have the numbers to retain its majority in the National Assembly. The move, spearheaded by the chief of the PMLF, Pir Pagara, to reunite the various Muslim Leagues had also spooked the PPP because it depends on a split Muslim League to win its seats in Punjab. A unified conservative vote would effectively reduce PPP into a marginal player in Punjab where nearly 70-75% of the vote is cast in favour of right wing conservative parties. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>After winning the approval of PMLQ President Shujaat Hussein for this reunification move, Pagara was in the process of approaching Nawaz Sharif to play his role in unifying the Muslim Leagues. The meeting between some PMLQ leaders with Shahbaz Sharif had further added to the discomfiture of the PPP which was receiving reports that Nawaz Sharif had given the go ahead for building up support to move a motion of no-confidence against the PPP government to effect an in-house change in government. The fact that PMLN had also started building bridges with the MQM only convinced the PPP that the opposition was coalescing to bring down the government. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Amidst all this manoeuvring, Nawaz Sharif made the mistake of declaring that while he was in favour of reuniting the Muslim Leagues, he could not countenance the inclusion of people like the Chaudhry cousins, Sheikh Rashid, and some others, as becoming part of the unified Muslim League. On their part, the Chaudhries too were averse to a unified Muslim League in which they would have to play second fiddle to the Sharifs'. The PPP took advantage of this opening created by Nawaz Sharif's inflexibility to shaking hands with people who, according to him, deserted him and joined hands with Gen. Pervez Musharraf to break the PMLN and form the PMLQ which ruled the roost as the King's party during the Musharraf regime. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>By reaching out to the PMLQ, the PPP could have scotched the moves to reunify the Muslim League. But there are other advantages that will accrue to both PPP and PMLQ if they actually are able to strike an alliance, provided of course in the process of joining hands the two parties are able to keep their flock together. The PPP will be able to get rid of the MQM's constant arm-twisting and will get a free hand to launch a clean-up operation in Karachi to end the wave of target killings in that city. At the centre, the PMLQ will replace the MQM and lend a more solid majority to the ruling coalition. The two parties will also be able to form their own government in Punjab, where although the PPP is part of the PMLN-led coalition, it is feeling sidelined in the decision making in the province which is considered Pakistan's 'controlling authority'. The PMLQ which has been fragmenting – there are currently four distinct factions in the Q League, all of which are pulling the party in separate directions – might be able to unify the party with the glue of power in both Islamabad and Lahore. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>While the advantages of a tie-up between the PPP and PMLQ are clear, what is not so clear is whether the leadership of the two parties will be able to take their party folk along in the new political arrangement. The task of tying up with PPP is somewhat more difficult for the PMLQ than the other way round. For one, there are differences between Shujaat and Pervez Elahi on an alliance with PPP, with the latter keen on getting back in the driver's seat while the former is more circumspect about embracing the PPP. Even if the cousins forge common ground, how many of the party men will they be able to take along with them? Unlike the PMLN in which the party revolves around the Sharifs', and the PPP where Asif Zardari is the undisputed boss, the Chaudhries are only first among equals. If anything, PMLQ is an agglomeration of politicians who are who are individually influential in their pocket boroughs and do not depend on the Chaudhries to win their elections. Given that many of the top PMLQ leaders are viscerally opposed to the PPP, coupled with the fact that joining hands with the PPP won't earn them any favours with the 'establishment', there is little incentive for many Q leaguers to follow the lead of the Chaudhries on the issue of an alliance with the PPP. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Then there is the issue of the existing divisions within the Q. There is one faction of the Q – Likeminded – which is keen on forging its own path and cultivating its own identity and which refuses to accept the leadership of the Chaudhries. The likeminded group is somewhat irrelevant as far as the current power politics is concerned because of most of the top figures in this faction are not members of any legislature at this point in time. A second faction is what is known as the 'forward bloc' which comprises of those lawmakers who want to rejoin the PMLN. A third faction comprises of those who are leaning towards the PPP. And finally, there is the faction which remains loyal to the Chaudhries. Perhaps the only reason why the PMLQ has not split formally until now is the anti-defection law, which has been further strengthened after the passage of the 18<sup>th</sup> Amendment under which the party president enjoys unbridled powers over his party legislators and can have them disqualified for the slightest infraction. Another reason why the 'forward bloc' has not switched sides is because it has felt ditched by Nawaz Sharif who, after initially leading them on, has left them out in the cold. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>While the fear of losing their seats could play a big factor in keeping the Q League together, a lot will depend on the political calculations of the legislators. If the lawmakers think long-term and come to the conclusion that they will be signing their political obituaries by joining a PPP-led coalition, they might well decide to cast their lot with the Sharifs' and try and get re-elected on a PMLN ticket from their constituencies in the by-elections. This gambit will of course entail the risk of fighting another election – hardly a palatable prospect for any politician if he can avoid it – that once they resign enmasse to join the PMLN, it is possible that Nawaz Sharif might not give them the party ticket to win back the seats they sacrificed. In either case, a mini general election that will be caused by mass disqualification could throw up some rather unpleasant political configurations in the legislative assemblies from the point of view of the ruling coalition. In other words, the entire political calculus driving the realignment could end up in a disaster.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Conversely, if the PMLQ lawmakers give priority to the present over the future, and go with the bird in the hand, there will still be problems as far as providing good and efficient governance is concerned. In a political system that runs on dispensing patronage, there will probably very little latitude available to spread the political goodies among supporters, what with bankruptcy staring Pakistani state in the face. If, however, political expediency rules over the imperatives of sensible economics, as is likely to happen, then it will only worsen the state of affairs in Pakistan and push the state further towards failure. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>There will also be the attendant issues of competition for the same political space. In a sense, the political space occupied by the PPP and PMLN did not clash as much as it will in the case of the PPP and its ally ANP on the one hand and the PMLQ on the other hand. The PMLN is primarily a GT road party and dominates in the Raiwind (Lahore) – Rawalpindi belt which extends a little into Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa along the GT road (Hazara division). The PPP and PMLQ however have a pan-Pakistan footprint and therefore more clash of interest. There are serious local rivalries between the two parties all over Punjab and even worse in Sindh. Papering over these rivalries is going to take some doing and on current record appears to be a mission impossible. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'>All things taken into account, while the prospect of a political deal between the PPP and PMLQ appears to be very clever, almost Machiavellian in scope, it's hardly the sort of political arrangement that has a long shelf life. But then in a country obsessed with a mythical past and which puts a huge premium on the present, power politics by definition has a short shelf life, more so when the only agenda before an incumbent is to ensure the completion of his term in office. Therefore, if a PMLQ-PPP alliance is able to ensure the survival of the PPP-led coalition for the next two years, it will have served its purpose. <br /></p><p>*********************************************************************</p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9961633.post-10781441604218746892010-10-14T02:59:00.001-07:002010-10-14T02:59:15.121-07:00<span xmlns=''><p style='text-align: center'><strong>WHAT MUSHARRAF LEFT UNSAID<br /></strong></p><p style='text-align: center'><br /> </p><p style='text-align: justify'> Gen Pervez Musharraf's mea culpa in an interview to Der Spiegel need to be seen as the ranting of a loquacious former military dictator harbouring fond, if utterly unrealistic, hopes of making a comeback in his country's politics. Although the interview to Der Spiegel was full of self-serving half-truths, it nevertheless revealed the inherent shallowness of the military strongman. Peeling away his pretentions of being a statesman, the interview showed him up as a purveyor of kitsch politics. What is worse from Pakistan's point of view, the interview reaffirmed Pakistan's image as a rogue state. While what Musharraf said, including his sensational confessions on raising terrorist groups and exporting Islamic terrorism to India, is important, equally important is what he left unsaid during the course of the interview.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><strong><em>The times of military coups in Pakistan are over<br /></em></strong></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Yes, they are but only until another man on the horseback decides to end the charade of democracy and assume power directly rather than running the show from the sidelines. As for the judiciary, strutting about in its new found empowerment and 'independence', setting '<em>a bar on itself to not validate a military takeover'</em>, this is something that will only be known when the next coup takes place. The standard operating procedure in Pakistan after a coup-maker usurps power is that he disbands the sitting judiciary and packs the benches with pliant judges who then 'validate' the coup. Far from the current judges not validating a coup, they appear hell bent on inviting one, albeit under the ridiculous pretence of protecting the rule of law by the dubious invocation of article 190 of the constitution which calls upon all executive and judicial authorities to aid the Supreme Court! The Supreme Court of Pakistan is playing the same role that bureaucrat-politicians like Ghulam Mohammed and Iskandar Mirza played in the 1950s when they invited the military to intervene in the politics of the country. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><strong><em>The non-performance of the government is the issue<br /></em></strong></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Sure it is an issue, but who is to decide this issue – the courts, the military or the people? Successive civilian governments in Pakistan have been dismissed or overthrown on precisely this pretext. Of course, since non-performance alone doesn't sound very convincing, the charges of corruption and in some cases, anti-state activities (security risk) are added to make the putsch more saleable. The Musharraf regime's performance, when measured against the seven point programme he laid out after overthrowing Nawaz Sharif's government in 1999, was, to say the least, dismal. The mess that he left behind is one of the major factors for the poor performance of the current government. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><strong><em>We have a culture of vendetta and vindictiveness in Pakistan <br /></em></strong></p><p style='text-align: justify'>And Musharraf epitomises this culture. His hatred for Benazir Bhutto was born out of the disciplinary action that Benazir's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had taken against his father who was found involved in some dodgy transactions while posted in a diplomatic mission in Indonesia. While Musharraf did not follow Gen. Ziaul Haq path by sending Nawaz Sharif to the gallows, he ensured that Nawaz Sharif was put away in prison for 25 years. During the time Nawaz Sharif was in prison, he was humiliated and treated like a common criminal. After Nawaz Sharif was sent to exile, Musharraf refused to let him return even for his father's burial. Musharraf's cronies tortured Nawaz Sharif's associates to get them to implicate Nawaz Sharif in more cases. The treatment meted out to Gen. Ziauddin Butt, the man who replaced Musharraf as army chief for a few hours – properties seized, pension annulled, and thrown into solitary confinement for two years – is probably Musharraf's definition of humaneness. The murder of Nawab Akbar Bugti by Musharraf's hit-men from the Pakistan army was also borne out of his ego clash with the Baloch sardars. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><strong><em>The West blames Pakistan for everything<br /></em></strong></p><p style='text-align: justify'>This is typical of the denial that pervades the Pakistani psyche of the wrongs committed by them. Worse, it displays the rather puerile mindset that has become the hallmark of the Pakistani establishment, especially when it comes to India. What can be more infantile than a former head of state, even though a illegitimate military dictator, to indulge in silly rhetoric of the sort that Musharraf does when he says "nobody asks the Indian Prime Minister.....". Well, nobody asks the Indian Prime Minister because India doesn't pose a threat to the civilized world by running a nuclear Wal-mart, exporting terrorism, and extorting handouts from the rest of the world not because of any merit but because of its nuisance value. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><strong><em>Pakistan is always seen as the rogue</em></strong><br /> </p><p style='text-align: justify'>Not without good reason. Musharraf himself admits later on in the interview that Pakistan formed terrorist groups and turned a blind eye to their depredations in India because the Pakistan government wanted India to discuss Kashmir. If use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy is not the hallmark of a rogue state, what is? This is a classic case of negotiating with another country not on the basis of logic and arguments but by pointing a gun to its head. Actually, Pakistan negotiates with two guns – one pointed at the head of its interlocutor and the other one pointed at its own head. Amazingly, Pakistan seems to be getting away with this two-gun diplomacy. First it was only India which since the days of Ayub Khan has fallen for the nonsense that it must make a gesture to Pakistan and understand the compulsions of the Pakistani regime otherwise the mad Mullahs will take over. Now even the Americans are falling for this tactic. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><strong><em>It is the right of any country to promote its own interests</em></strong><br /> </p><p style='text-align: justify'>Of course it is. But has Pakistan promoted its interests by supporting, training, funding and providing sanctuary to Islamic terror groups? Strange way of promoting national interest, especially since Musharraf himself has on a number of occasions argued that these terror groups pose an existential threat to Pakistan. Worse, the use of terrorism has effectively lost Pakistan whatever little sympathy there was among some sections of Western public opinion for Pakistan's position on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir. There is hardly any country in the world which is now ready to back the Islamist cause in Kashmir because of the rippling effect this will have on jihadist movements worldwide. But in a sense Pakistan, which is today an international basket case, has indeed promoted its interests by 'looking both ways' on the issue of Islamic terrorism. Pakistan's USP today is that it is the epicentre of Jihad Inc. and this is what bestows upon it the billions of dollars in arms and aid that keep the country afloat. <br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><strong><em>There is no such thing as a moderate Taliban</em></strong><br /> </p><p style='text-align: justify'>But wasn't it Musharraf himself who advocated the cause of the moderate Taliban after 9/11? This statement of his is typical of the flip-flop-flip that Pakistanis adopt according to convenience on the issue of terrorism. Shortly after saying that there is no such thing as a moderate Taliban, the same Musharraf, in another interview, batted in favour of negotiations with moderate Taliban! And this is the man that George W Bush was 'thick' with?<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><strong><em>Why, nine years after 9/11, does Pakistan remain a breeding ground for international terrorism<br /></em></strong></p><p style='text-align: justify'>Simple, because Musharraf looked both ways on the issue of terrorism and the current military leadership continues to follow the Musharraf policy. Actually, Musharraf had given hints of this policy just after 9/11 when in an address to his nation to explain that he was junking the Taliban he invoked the treaties that Prophet Mohammad had signed for reasons of expediency and which were revoked as soon as the circumstances changed. The Pakistanis made a show of aligning themselves with the Americans but continued to support, sustain and sponsor their Taliban allies. Fortunately for the Pakistanis this double game was somewhat hidden by the fact that some of the Islamist groups turned their guns on Pakistan, and the subsequent actions of the Pakistan army against these renegade elements was used to convince the world that Pakistan was indeed fighting the Islamists. But the reality was quite different. And it is this continuing flirtation with the Taliban that has made Pakistan the breeding ground of international terrorism.<br /></p><p style='text-align: justify'><strong><em>Mr Khan [the nuclear technician] is a characterless man </em></strong><br /> </p><p>This is quite royal coming from Musharraf. Only the most gullible will buy Musharraf's line that the Pakistan army and intelligence agencies were totally unaware of the nuclear supermarket that was being run by the rogue technician. Clearly, Khan became the fall guy for the proliferation network that was being run by the Pakistan army to get missile technology from another rogue state – North Korea – and money from countries like Iran and Libya. </p></span>Sushant Sareenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14392096015068030138noreply@blogger.com0