‘Attacking Pakistan will not solve terrorism’

Former foreign secretary and former Indian envoy to the United States, Lalit Mansingh does not think that military action against Pakistan is a good or feasible idea. He thinks India should work on the diplomatic front and get the United States and the international community to exert pressure on Pakistan. Mansingh tells Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr that India should not react in anger to the Mumbai terrorist act, but adopt a carefully formulated policy.
  
Is the US response more concerned with their own war on terror?
The Americans look at issues through the prism of their own national interests, their global interests.  In 2000, we formed a joint working group on anti-terrorism. The Americans did not seem be to be interested in what we were saying. The attacks of 9/11 changed all that. Once they were attacked they realised what we were telling them was right. We were victims of terrorism before 9/11. But post-9/11 it became a priority for the Americans. There wasn’t much we achieved through the joint working group even after 9/11. The American perception was that they were fighting international terrorism and we were dealing with a local problem. We told them that the source of terrorism was emanating from our neighbourhood, that madrassas in Pakistan were creating future jihadis. They refused to take cognisance of it. Now the Americans are almost convinced that we are both fighting the same phenomenon. What came out from the Mumbai massacre was that the people who caused this massacre were singling out American, British and Israeli nationals. What has resulted in the Mumbai incident is the greater convergence of views between the United States and India. This is why we are receiving greater cooperation from the FBI, the CIA, British intelligence and the Israelis. That kind of intelligence cooperation was not forthcoming earlier.

Do you think the US had pampered Pakistan all these years and their response now is too little, too late?
My take on this is that depending on Americans alone is not good enough. Americans cannot save us from terrorism. I think 80 per cent of the effort against terrorism has to be national, 20 per cent international. Diplomacy is important. But are we are doing enough on our own?

Should India should keep its options open vis-à-vis Pakistan?
What people are saying about keeping the options open, but not saying it, is the military option. Now, I am strongly of the view that this is a dangerous way of thinking, for several reasons. I have a generalised theory about India’s dealing with Pakistan. One is that when India tries to put pressure on Pakistan bilaterally, they (in Pakistan) generally tend to become belligerent. So, it does not work. When the international community puts pressure on Pakistan, they are more inclined to cooperate with India. Invading Pakistan territory is not going to help in fighting terrorism. Earlier, they were suggestions about taking punitive action, and attacking terrorist camps in Pakistan. It is an option that was considered carefully in the past, and given up. Remember, the terrorist camps are not fixed. They change their location. You can attack a dozen camps, but they crop up elsewhere. It is not a feasible option.

So how do we deal with it?
While dealing with Pakistan we have to remember two things. One, Pakistan is a nuclear-weapon state. We have to handle it carefully. Second, Pakistan is a failing state with deep internal divisions. Threatening it would make it easy for these terrorist elements to take over. So instead of talking about other options, which is a euphemism for military action, we should focus on diplomacy and get the international community to pressurise Pakistan.

What do you make of US president-elect Barack Obama’s statement that every sovereign state has a right to defend its territory?
Let us look at the Obama doctrine. During the election campaign he said that if there is actionable intelligence about terrorist activity and the Pakistanis were unwilling or unable to act, then the US should strike. In our case, we do not have actionable intelligence against Pakistan. The US has the capability for surgical strikes. India is not the US.

Even the US commits blunders because they have been killing civilians in their attack on terrorist targets.

Do you think that the time has come for the international community to act against Pakistan?
Yes. The time has come. The US and the international community will have to consider that the rifts in Pakistan society, its weak democratic structure and the danger of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists are global problems, not just that of India’s. The international community will have to find a way to deal with it.