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COMMENTARY
December 29, 2001
Subcontinent aboil
We are now dealing with the first real curve thrown since the beginning of the war against terrorism. The hunt for Osama bin Laden and the general mop-up after the Afghan war is shifting unavoidably to a back burner as the Bush administration takes in the prospect of a war between India and Pakistan. Other small anti-terrorist military operations -- in Somalia Yemen the Philippines for instance -- can proceed in their quiet way. But the chance of a big and ghastly war in the subcontinent tends even to let Saddam Hussein off the hook however temporarily. The U.S. president already finds himself seconded to the war department; three fronts already divide his attention and that of the Pentagon. Add Iraq to this stew and we begin to need a few extra presidents. This is the greatest limitation on the U.S. hyperpower -- information overload. The resources are easily there to conduct or track perhaps a dozen separate conflicts at a time but to manage each properly would require a reckless delegation of the civil power to military commanders in the field. How much nicer if the U.S. had allies so powerful and reliable that they could say perhaps: "Okay you British clean up Afghanistan while we take out Iraq and maybe the Canadians can handle that Commonwealth issue." Instead they have the sort of allies who are ready for nothing take no responsibility and reserve the right to carp while the Americans defend the vital common interest. Neither India nor Pakistan wants to go to war despite their respective signals. They have escalated diplomatically to well beyond what they did before the last armed encounter over Kargil in Kashmir in 1999. High Commissioners have been withdrawn from each other's capitals their staffs cut by half airline overflights stopped along with most cross-border traffic trade arrangements jeopardized and a threat made by India to abrogate crucial watershed treaties. The two armies have been moved into forward positions all the way from the Arabian Sea to the Karakoram range at the frontier with China -- some thousands of kilometres of potential war zone. India alone has probably deployed half a million troops displacing farmers through Rajasthan and Punjab Pakistan has deployed perhaps a quarter million right across the line. And yet the rhetoric from both prime ministers Pervez Musharraf and Shri A.B. Vajpayee is calculated to leave room for retreat. Both have made clear that the use of nuclear weapons is unthinkable. Gen. Musharraf has been especially understated proceeding with a state visit to China then returning to his home in Karachi to deal with domestic issues avoiding his command post at Rawalpindi. Unfortunately this also gives the impression he is not taking the Indian claim that Pakistan's ISI was mixed up in the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament with sufficient gravity. He must indeed be doing so for Pakistan finds itself pressed into a defensive corner. It has no allies to call upon except China which almost certainly knows better than to get involved. At the moment there are 100 000 Pakistani troops tied up either combing the North-West Frontier province for signs of wandering Al Qaeda or defending U.S. bases from internal attack. The U.S. is moreover currently in control of at least one-third of Pakistani air space for its mission in Afghanistan including I believe the air space over all likely launch sites for Pakistan's nuclear missiles. The odds were sufficiently against Pakistan before one hand was tied behind her back. But the Indian government is trapped in an offensive posture. The country is a democracy for all the corruption and flaws and reasonably accurate polls suggest that enthusiasm for "doing something" runs towards 85 per cent. Now 14 per cent of the Indian population is actually Muslim. (It hasn't helped that the Indian media are exultantly playing things like an intercepted phone conversation from during the Kargil conflict in which Gen. Musharraf and his lieutenants apparently discussed the actual deployment of Kashmiri terrorist cells.) Mr. Vajpayee seems to have promised the U.S. state department that he has made all his moves but these were only in response to the attack on Parliament. He agrees publicly to believe assurances from the U.S. that Gen. Musharraf has no present control over Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Muhammad the two main Kashmiri jihadist groups. Musharraf has frozen their finances and placed the Jaish founder Masood Azhar under house arrest rather pansy moves against them that smack of an Arafat but are at least a start. Now what if there is another terrorist strike? In the present situation this is quite possible. For Kashmir's terrorists are themselves cornered. Most were trained in Afghanistan and in recent weeks there have been many hints that Al Qaeda operatives escaping from Khowst and Tora-Bora were slipping right through to join their brothers in Azad ("free" i.e. Pakistan-controlled) Kashmir. Even if he's trying Gen. Musharraf can only stop some of these killers who exploit the lawlessness of Paskistan's Pashtun frontier and which shades into the lawfulness of the Punjabi plain so that there are no clear boundaries anywhere. Anticipating a Pakistan government crackdown the terrorists have already shifted their headquarters from the old safety of the Punjab to the wild east of Muzaffarabad the capital of Pakistani Kashmir. They are increasingly exposed and have every motive to start a war between India and Pakistan if only to improve their cover. And if their agents -- who operate throughout India from within sizeable migrant Kashmiri populations in their fruit markets and handicraft shops and artisan studios -- can somehow succeed in launching another dramatic incident Mr. Vajpayee will find Indian public opinion no longer possible to resist. In my understanding the U.S. caught in the "broker" position between two extremely useful allies is applying tremendous pressure to Gen. Musharraf behind the scenes to make him bite his second bullet. For to prevent an Indian invasion Pakistan must show that it will not just condemn but destroy the Islamist terrorist operations in the territory it controls. Meanwhile the U.S. state department following its usual instinct to find long-term solutions to short-term crises is pressing both parties towards some kind of final settlement over Kashmir (as it presses Israel and the Palestinian Authority however pointlessly). At this moment in history the only possible solution is to draw a permanent border between the two countries along the ceasefire line that runs through Kashmir and have both nations acknowledge it "in perpetuity". But Pakistan will no more acknowledge India's sovereignty over the more attractive and populous part of a largely Muslim state than India will acknowledge Pakistani control over any part of a state that opted to join India at Partition. The Kashmiris themselves if given a referendum (long demanded by United Nations resolutions) would choose independence from both countries; but this in turn would almost certainly lead like a Pakistani takeover to the exile of the state's substantial Hindu and other minorities and abet other separatist movements all over India. Which means no "third option" is obtainable. The next best for the Kashmiris themselves is the status quo plus peace. But even this can be had only if Pakistan stands down and goes to war against Kashmir's "freedom fighters". It is the most unpopular decision any Pakistani leader could take. And yet he must do it for the survival of Pakistan. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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