Round The World

New Delhi, 30 March 2010

US-Pak Talks

ALARMING, BUT LET’S NOT PANIC

By Monish Tourangbam

Research Scholar, School of International Studies, JNU

The recently-concluded US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue has raised many an eyebrow in the Indian strategic circles. While one needs to be concerned as well as calculative of the new developments, it would be immature to resort to unnecessary barrage of criticism and brickbats. If the Pakistanis attempt, as quite evident, was to somehow convince the US to intervene in matters pertaining to the India-Pakistan dispute, then they obviously came back empty-handed. The American side maintained a very cautious line. The Obama administration has made concerted efforts to cultivate increasing ties with New Delhi and appears to be in no mood to jeopardize this intense and diverse relationship.

During the dialogue, the US came out in full support of the developmental efforts in Pakistan and its increasing cooperation in the fight against terrorism. However, it was categorical that the India-Pakistan issues need to be resolved bilaterally. If the Pakistani side re-emphasized its desire to maintain parity in certain issues of the US-Pakistan and US-India relations, for instance in the field of civilian nuclear cooperation, the US reiterated the point that all bilateral relations stood on its own merit and the trajectory of US-Pakistan relations should be weighed independent of any other bilateral ties.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in the course of the dialogue stated Pakistan’s hope that that the US would play a “constructive” role in resolving the Kashmir dispute and provide it with “non-discriminatory” access to energy. There are no points for guessing that the “non-discriminatory access” plainly refers to Pakistan’s wish to strike a grand civilian nuclear deal with the US, similar to the one signed between New Delhi and Washington.

In both the cases, the Obama administration has not given any indication that it seriously takes heed of the Pakistani wish.  New Delhi has maintained a policy that seeks to resolve the Kashmir issue on a bilateral basis and concentrates on countering Pakistan-based cross-border terrorism. Lately, the Islamist anti-India militant organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) at a conference held in Kotli, a district along the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) rejected the India-Pakistan talks and instead projected jihad as the only way to liberate Kashmir from what they call “Indian occupation”.

India is overtly critical of any hint of external intervention in this dispute and the Obama administration is very clear about this policy stand. As such, a deliberate effort was made to steer clear of any inciting undue criticism at this juncture on this delicate issue. Commenting on the case of the India-Pakistan water dispute, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, opined that the US knew that an agreement existed between the two South Asian countries and that contentious matters should be resolved on a bilateral basis.

“Where there is an agreement, as there is between India and Pakistan on water, with mediation techniques, arbitration built in it, it would seem sensible to look to what already exists, to try to resolve any of the bilateral problems between India and Pakistan.” She was all hopeful and sought to indicate America’s desire to assist on any water resource development in Pakistan as long as it was purely domestic in nature, and she did not support unnecessarily complicating the issue by connecting it to external matters (read broader India-Pakistan rivalry).  

It was made clear that the US wanted the US-Pakistan Strategic dialogue to serve as a means to appraise US-Pakistan ties and its cooperation in Afghanistan, and not as a platform to discuss India-Pakistan dispute and as an instrument to showcase Pakistan’s displeasure of US-India engagement.

Even Richard Holbrooke, US Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan commented that the US administration did not see a role for itself in India-Pakistan disputes unless called upon by both countries. Earlier, he also made efforts to reassure Indian strategic circles by emphasising that the US also had strategic dialogue with India, that they were bilateral in nature and that the current one with Pakistan was certainly not at the expense of India or any other country.

As far as Pakistan’s wish for a broad-based civilian nuclear deal with the US is concerned, at this juncture there is no need for India to panic and it would be wrong to blow critical trumpets on the issue. Washington seems to be in no mood to consider such a grand venture with Pakistan in the near future. Moreover, Pakistan has a shoddy record when it comes to non-proliferation, with the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan, having disclosed selling nuclear technology to countries like Iran, North Korea and Libya.

At his end, Qureshi seemed to be harping on nuclear cooperation, reiterating Pakistan’s wish to have what he called “non-discriminatory” access to energy clearly signifying the desire of parity with the India-US deal, a culmination of long negotiations and dialogues. It is also worth remembering that India also had to take arduous diplomatic pains to get pass the 46 nation Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver and a safe pass from the US Congress. But as is evident, Washington has been vague at best regarding this.

Indeed, Clinton sidestepped questions on the issue except to say that the Obama administration was prepared to discuss "whatever issues" the Pakistani delegation raised. She seemed to support more specifically prospects for American assistance to increasing the efficiency of more immediate steps towards harnessing energy resources in Pakistan. Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and now with the Brookings Institution said: “There will be some horse-trading. We owe them helicopters but I would be very surprised if we gave them anything on the nuclear front.”

There are some serious concerns in India concerning the pumping of military aid into Pakistan and the supply of high-tech weapons that New Delhi fears will be diverted towards building Pakistani arsenal against India. Pakistan sent a 56-page wish list ahead of the talks, asking for more helicopters and pilotless drones, all in the name of fighting insurgents in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The US has provided F-16 fighter jets to Islamabad and Pakistan's Navy chief was in Washington recently to discuss the handover in August of a refurbished U.S. frigate, the USS McInerney. Moreover, non-military aid has also flowed into Pakistani coffers and in the absence of a transparent mechanism to track the use of this supposedly benign currency, New Delhi has reason to be worried.

President Obama increasingly seems to consider Afghanistan as the litmus test of his administration’s foreign policy report card and in the process has become more dependent on Islamabad. Pakistan is indeed an important frontline State and its assistance is inevitable if peace and stability is to be restored in neighbouring Afghanistan. But at the same time too much reliance on the Pakistani military and its intelligence runs the risk of history repeating itself. Over-dependence on these entities in the past has led to the strengthening of fundamentalism and jihadi groups in the region. Unaudited reliance on these Pakistani establishments smacks of a historical blunder that would lead to another tragedy for the region and the international community. And this time around, history might repeat itself as a catastrophe.--INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)