17 - 23 January 2002
Issue No.569
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 17 - 23 January 2002 Issue No.569 |
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Good cop, bad cop
As tension simmers in the subcontinent, Mukul Devichand reports on how the US-led coalition against terror may be using one nuclear neighbour to control the other
Last Saturday, leaders in New Delhi and Washington were glued to their television sets as Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf addressed his country on the small screen. "We will take strict action against any Pakistani who is involved in terrorism inside the country or abroad," said Musharraf, dressed in civilian attire for the occasion.
The speech was widely billed as appeasing India, but the General may also be dancing to a more distant drum. The crackdown on Islamists comes as Pakistan's leader is increasingly caught between a carrot and a stick.
Pakistan's traditional nemesis India, of course, is the stick. Enraged by attacks on its territory by allegedly Pakistan-based militants and currently on a war footing, New Delhi's response to the speech was guarded at best. Pakistan's promises will be assessed "only by the concrete action taken," an Indian embassy spokeswoman told Al-Ahram Weekly .
In Washington, however, US Secretary of State Colin Powell seemed pleased as he offered Islamabad the carrot of approval. "The United States welcomes President Musharraf's explicit statements against terrorism and particularly notes his pledge that Pakistan will not tolerate terrorism under any pretext," he said, preparing the ground for a visit to the region this week.
Secretary Powell's good mood is well- placed. Although the international focus has shifted to India as the potential aggressor, the US-led "coalition against terror" may have even more to gain than India from forcing Pakistan to crack down on its myriad Islamist groups.
"Clearly a Pakistan that has turned away from jihad and has put the lid domestically on militant fundamentalists is going to be easier for the US to deal with and support," according to Dennis Kux, a retired US diplomat and South Asia expert at the Woodrow Wilson Centre. Kux told the Weekly that "the change, if successfully effected, also augurs well for greater internal stability than Pakistan has enjoyed for many years."
The US, which used Pakistani intelligence agencies to funnel mujahidin into Afghanistan in the 1970s, knows that old ties between Pakistani Islamists and Pakistani bureaucrats must be severed if the regional pandemic of extreme Islamist militancy is to be permanently muzzled. On Friday, Texas-based strategic intelligence unit STRATFOR likened the situation to the police interrogation tactic in which one policeman (India) acts as bully while the other (the US) offers the wretched suspect (Pakistan) a way out of the fix. "Washington is playing good cop to New Delhi's bad cop in order to pressure the Pakistani President," the unit claimed.
Are Washington and New Delhi really playing such elaborate games with Musharraf? "There's always a tacit collaboration in these things, especially to the extent that the US is seeking to reassure India that their relationship is close, despite their new-found alliance with Islamabad over Afghanistan," said Jonathan Stevenson of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. He told the Weekly: "There is sympathy for India's position in the US, although there's a definite feeling that the US should counsel India to exercise restraint and the US is actually staying somewhat aloof."
"But if the Indians do restrain their use of force, there's no doubt that between them, India and the US will have forced Musharraf's hand over the militants," Stevenson added.
The US, keen to act as peace-broker between old enemies during Powell's tour next week, is maintaining the same even stance taken by UK leader Tony Blair in his recent visit. Nevertheless, friendly gestures extended to Indian Union Home Minister LK Advani on his visit to Capitol Hill last week have fuelled speculation. Advani's moment of glory came when US President George W Bush made an ostensibly unscheduled "drop-over" into Advani's meeting with US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
When the Weekly asked, the Indian embassy spokeswoman in Cairo told us that "the home minister's visit was very successful," and included "intelligence-sharing through the discussions that had gone on between the Home Minister and the US Attorney General."
"We shared the available evidence on the 13 December attack in the Indian parliament with the US authorities and have made known to them our concern," said the spokeswoman. "They have shown full understanding."
India is keen to take advantage of the US's recent adoption of its rhetoric against terrorism across the India-Pakistan border. India's gripe with Pakistan is an old one. New Delhi has long claimed that the Islamist insurgency against it in Kashmir is directly sponsored by Pakistan.
India's angry stance is an old story. But why is the US pressurising a Pakistani administration that so recently risked instability by supporting it in the war on Afghanistan?
The answer is that Washington knows that Pakistani Islamism -- which once spawned the Taliban -- is still a potent force. In the wake of the US's campaign in Afghanistan, large swathes of Pakistan have been destabilised as sizeable numbers of Taliban militants, originally educated in Pakistani madrasas (religious schools), returned to Pakistan to join a like- minded minority of Pakistanis.
According to Britishanalyst Tariq Ali, "a sizeable minority of these are probably angered by Islamabad's betrayal and are eager to link up with armed fundamentalist groups already in the country."
The US, fearful that the fires of Islamist terrorism will be rekindled, cannot allow that to happen. "The US has accepted the Indian view that you can't have different classes of terrorism," acknowledged Dennis Kux. Bit by bit, it seems, General Musharraf is being coaxed into accepting the same.
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