War clouds

Real or perceived?

Pakistan of course (justifiably so) denies any involvement in the Uri attack. But unfortunately there are few takers of Islamabad’s non-involvement in facilitating, dispatch and training of militants operating across the LOC

Post the audacious attack on an Indian military base just across the line of control (LOC) in Uri last Sunday both India and Pakistan are in a grip of war hysteria. But is war really an option between the two nuclear powered adversaries?

The bellicose Indian leadership, buttressed by a hostile anti-Pakistan media, is in a belligerent mood. Predictably the BJP government, headed by a hawkish prime minister, is under domestic pressure to punish Islamabad for its perceived intransigence.

Pakistan of course (justifiably so) denies any involvement in the Uri attack. But unfortunately there are few takers of Islamabad’s non-involvement in facilitating, dispatch and training of militants operating across the LOC.

The uprising in Indian held Kashmir after the assassination of the youthful militant leader Burhan Wani took the world and perhaps both India and Pakistan by surprise. The tactics used by half a million plus Indian security forces to suppress the indigenous uprising has left scores of Kashmiris martyred. The valley, constantly under curfew, is in a state of virtual siege.

Prime Minister Sharif’s speech at the UN summit would have ordinarily been a mundane affair — reiterating Pakistan’s oft-repeated stance on Kashmir. But the Uri attack added a special significance to it.

Domestically, even political adversaries including a few former foreign ministers hailed it as the best speech Sharif has ever made. Admittedly the prime minister articulated Islamabad‘s stance on Kashmir, Afghanistan and resumption of India-Pakistan dialogue quite succulently and eloquently.

Nonetheless, hawks on both sides of the divide were unhappy. The religious right in Pakistan reckons that the prime minister did not go far enough in exposing Indian duplicity.

The Indian media, on the other hand, reacted most negatively to the speech, terming it as the most inflammatory ever delivered by a Pakistani leader. The Indian Express went as far as editorialising that General Raheel Sharif helped draft it.

Unfortunately both the foreign policy establishment and the media in India are firmly of the view that generals run foreign policy in Pakistan. This perception has been further strengthened partly owing to the military’s direct involvement in the war against terrorism.

Nonetheless the kind of close co-ordination that exists between the khaki andmufti leadership in Pakistan on foreign policy would be unthinkable within the Indian polity. Hence Nawaz Sharif, hitherto seen as a dove on Indo-Pak relations, has been forced to take a more belligerent anti India stance than he actually believes in.

India’s overbearing attitude owing to its economic and military might — knocking at the doors of the UN Security Council to join the exclusive club — treats Pakistan with sheer contempt. Sharif perhaps naively assumed that he could molly cuddle Narendra Modi by striking a personal rapport with him.

To some extent he succeeded as well. Nonetheless the power equation in Pakistan and stark realities of India-Pakistan relations kicked in sooner than later to soil the honeymoon.

According to most analysts despite all the sabre-rattling war is not an option between the two nuclear powered adversaries. New Delhi, instead of opening a dialogue with the Kashmiris and with Islamabad, is reportedly toying with different options.

According to informed Indian media, it is seriously examining several scenarios. They include surgical strikes across the LOC to destroy Pakistani base camps, air and missile attacks on India-specific jihadist outfits, covert action inside Pakistan and last but not the least massive military mobilisation on Pakistan’s borders for the sake of intimidation.

In the end analysis perhaps India might not do anything owing to the risks involved in all of the above options and lack of preparedness of its forces. More so also because on the diplomatic front both the US and UK seem to be backing its stance.

Even after the US Secretary of State John Kerry’s meeting with Sharif on the sidelines of the UNGA the White House spokesman reiterated the American stance that Pakistanshould do more to dismantle safe havens of the Indian and Afghan specific outfits operating from within its borders.

Some security analysts noted that both the US and UK condemned the Sundayattack but unlike the past did not predicate their condemnation for a return to dialogue on the Kashmir issue. According to Myra MacDonald a security specialist, “both countries realise that there is very little hope of Pakistan giving up its support for militant groups.”

War between two nuclear adversaries is madness or as it is termed in diplomatic parlance: mutually assured destruction. (MAD). Nevertheless given the kind of war hysteria being created across the border by madmen at the helm of affairs nothing can be entirely ruled out.

If sanity prevails at the end of the day, there is no option but resumption of dialogue between India and Pakistan. But there can be no dialogue of the deaf.

Hence both sides will have to climb down from their stated positions. Perhaps if Modi attends the forthcoming SAARC summit in Islamabad due in December, it will be a good opportunity to break the impasse.

Notwithstanding the veracity or otherwise of Pakistan hosting all kinds of militants outfits the time has come to review this policy. Unfortunately there are only a few takers of our narrative that, “how can we perpetrate terrorism as we ourselves are a victim of terrorism?”

Simply put, Pakistan can no longer sustain banned outfits like JEM (Jaish-e-Mohammad), LET (Lashker-e-Taiaba) or JUD (Jamat-ud-Dawa) having a free pass within its borders. Similarly the so-called Haqqani Network and the Quetta Shura should be sent packing to Afghanistan.

The presence of these outfits within our borders is being used by a hostile India to isolate Pakistan within the region as well as internationally. Not only with India and Afghanistan are our relations at the lowest ebb, they are frayed with Washington as well.

It is too late to induct a foreign minister now that the present government is nearing general elections in one and a half years. The conduct of foreign policy is a function of internal cohesion and policy. But the manner in which our foreign office is being run by Sharif, keeping the portfolio with himself, leaves much to be desired.

Perhaps the prime minister reckons that with the military calling the shots on security-ridden foreign policy, it is prudent that he remains foreign minister. But as the results speak for themselves, it is an unmitigated disaster.

It is time that our civilian and military leadership with mutual consultations take a good stock of the country’s diplomatic isolation. An ostrich like attitude, playing the victim card, will no longer do.