DNA Edit: Modi effect on Musharraf

Pakistan is unnerved, and the signs of discomfort both for its politicians and army are more than palpable. With US President Donald Trump’s administration indicating that it will be withholding $255 million in foreign military financing, and, possibly, future aid for Islamabad, Pakistan’s isolation in the global community seems to have entered its final phase. Against this backdrop, former president of Pakistan General (Retd) Pervez Musharraf’s acknowledgment that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is dominating Pakistan in terms of global diplomacy and that the country is becoming virtually a pariah state, is a reiteration of the current reality.

With PM Modi bringing in the global community on a platform to reaffirm its pledge to fight terror, India is clearly winning the battle of perceptions. For far too long, Islamabad had gotten away with bleeding India through a thousand cuts, and Musharraf — the Kargil mastermind — was guilty of the same crime. But the tables have turned against Pakistan. Musharraf is living in fool’s paradise since he felt that designating Lashkar-e-Taiba as a terrorist organisation was a wrong strategy on Pakistan’s part. The LeT had ravaged Kashmir Valley by drawing impressionable youth into a violent struggle that has no future. In the process, LeT has ruined the lives of ordinary Kashmiris who felt no solidarity with militancy.

Musharraf is a wily politician trying to stage a come back. He knows that by supporting Jamaat-ud-Dawa and LeT he will gain some political currency in the political landscape where he has been completely marginalised. But, this is mere wishful thinking. He is right in saying that “Pakistan’s foreign policy is flawed”. What he might find hard to digest is that peddling terror in today’s world will have dangerous consequences.