Passing the buck back

Our policy towards Pakistan post Mumbai has been ineffectual. By avoiding bilateral action, we wanted Mumbai to be treated as a case of international terrorism and not another outcome of the Kashmir feud.

British foreign secretary Miliband has foiled this strategy by writing in The Guardian just before his recent India visit that Kashmir remains a call to arms for terrorists targeting India. In Delhi he did advance work for the Obama Administration by lecturing our political leadership on settling the Kashmir issue.

We also calculated that bilateral restraint would help persuade US, and others, to chastise Pakistan on our behalf. We thought the transformed India-US relationship coupled with growing US dissatisfaction with Pakistan’s ambivalence in combating Taliban elements would induce the Americans to force Pakistan to atone for Mumbai.

We misjudged again. India-US relations have improved greatly, but not enough to drive US policy towards Pakistan on terrorism. US has to limit pressure on Pakistan for Mumbai to avoid compromising its larger interest in obtaining its willing cooperation in controlling its Afghanistan border.

The US has the political, military and economic capacity to punish Pakistan for duplicity, but it does not want to push it towards failure as a state and increase the risk of its nuclear weapons falling into extremist hands.

Far from being at one with us in confronting the growth of terrorism in Pakistan, the Obama entourage unveiled thinking contrary to our interests. It saw some legitimacy in Pakistan’s reluctance to put needed resources on the western front while it felt vulnerable in the east.

Accordingly, it saw a solution in Afghanistan passing through a solution to the Kashmir issue. It is unclear how an integrated approach to Afghanistan with participation of Iran and India can work under US auspices. The US certainly does not intend to help carve out a sphere of durable Indian influence in Afghanistan or give us a role and position at Pakistan’s expense. 

India has to be prodded to accept a regional responsibility that assists US policy and interests. Therefore, instead of isolating Pakistan diplomatically on the issue of terrorism, US has interest in projecting it as a victim of terror also so that India and Pakistan can be steered to deal with their common problem jointly. The responsibility for Mumbai has, accordingly, to be placed squarely on non state-actors, charges of official complicity deflected and the doors of dialogue between India and Pakistan kept open.

All the major powers want the India-Pakistan dialogue to be resumed. Holbrooke’s truncated mandate should not lull us into believing US will not pressure India on its dealings with Pakistan using Afghanistan as reason.

Pakistan has reduced Mumbai to a debate on evidence, stretching it out to release pressure for quick redressal by subjecting it to a process, while retaining the initiative by seeking additional information and controlling the pace of investigations.

The strategy is to buy time, knowing that as it elapses, urgency is lost and the world’s attention moves elsewhere. All the privileged access given to the FBI and other western agencies to build pressure on Pakistan through evidence gathered by them independently has not yielded commensurate result.

Pakistan has toyed with us by first repeatedly demanding evidence, then stating it was insufficient and later that it was only “information”. It announced a time-bound response and then backed out.

It claimed thereafter without basis that a response had been given and, to top it all, it first planted a leak that the Mumbai attack was not planned from Pakistani soil and later that it had a South Asian dimension, including Bangladesh. This was an unscrupulous ploy to spread responsibility for Mumbai so that Pakistan alone cannot be held accountable. The insidious intention is to broaden the scope of investigations to India too.

Pakistan’s belated acceptance of some incontrovertible facts about Mumbai is “positive” only when contrasted with its utterly unreasonable posture earlier.  Relenting slightly from a very hard position and touting it as a “concession” in order to look good, is a familiar diplomatic ploy. Pakistan is conceding, with hedging, the inescapable minimum, leaving the root of the problem unaddressed.

It will now press the international community for some gesture from India in return for its latest charade of constructive behaviour. This is the fruit of our undemanding diplomacy.
Pakistan was caught in flagrante delicto in Mumbai, yet it is managing to escape real accountability. By reducing it an investigative drama, it has averted attention from core questions.

Our periodic tough sounding statements, without concrete action, are like blank shots.  Our softness has made us accomplices in Pakistan’s post-Mumbai masquerade. We are not deterring another Mumbai.