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WASHINGTON: With the failure of Russian-led efforts to defuse the South Asia crisis, pressure is building on the United States, which has leverage but no silver bullet, to bring stability to the volatile region.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who is now in the Sub-continent, and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who follows next week, are expected to carry a tough message as Washington tries to head off a war between the two countries.
But whether leaders in Islamabad and New Delhi are prepared to hear that message — and act on it — is a matter of some debate.
“The United States has an indispensable role to play. Whether it will be decisive or not is a question,” said Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state, who dealt closely with India and Pakistan under ex-president Bill Clinton.
“More than 50 percent of American diplomacy during this crisis is just showing up. ... As long as US officials are coming (to the region), there is a modestly diminished danger of war,” said Talbott, who will soon take over as president of the Brookings Institution.
Husain Haqqani, an aide to three Pakistani prime ministers who is now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called the US leverage in the current crisis “considerable”.
“It is the principal backer of General (Pervez) Musharraf in Pakistan, and the Indian government has been making a tremendous effort to develop a special relationship with the United States. So there is no way that either side would want to run afoul of the United States,” he said.
But a US Senate aide said there is a real danger that Pakistan and India “think we have more leverage than we really do”.
“Both sides are counting on us to restrain the other side,” he said. “We just do not have the kind of power that they think we have.”
Privately US officials say they have doubts about whether Pakistan is ready and able to crack down on Mujahideen India alleges are based in Azad Kashmir.
They worry that domestic politics, not international considerations, are controlling decision-making, especially in India where hardliners are dominant and the government could fall if it is perceived as losing the faceoff with Pakistan.
“It may be (India and Pakistan) are past the point of really listening to what Americans or any other foreigners tell them,” one senior US official said.
“That’s why the strength of the message Armitage and Rumsfeld deliver is so important,” he said.
TWO-PART APPROACH: The United States seems to be pursuing a two-part approach.
First, it is advancing a brutally frank description of how all-out nuclear war would devastate both countries.
The Pentagon leaked a classified report putting casualties from such an exchange at 12 million dead — the equivalent of wiping out the entire population of Karachi or Kolkata.
Second, the administration is reminding both countries that a recent dramatic upturn in US relations with them is at risk.
Pakistan and India, “if they get into major conflict, are going to be set back years in terms of their political relationships with the rest of the world, their economic relationships,” Rumsfeld told The Washington Post on Monday.
He made clear his meetings would focus on the “logic and the interests of each country” and he was not bringing “a Christmas basket filled with deliverables”.
CARROTS AND STICKS: However, US officials and analysts say that of necessity any US approach must contain both “carrots and sticks”.
Making demands that could force President Musharraf from power could hurt the US “anti-terrorism war”.
One US official said if the president complains that taking serious action against the Kashmiri Mujahideen would result in his ouster, Washington has to be ready to take steps — short of military action — to guarantee he stays in power.
“It means we do something visibly to support him, like providing more economic assistance, military assistance, bringing him to the White House. If he decides we’re his horse, then we’ve got to make sure that he doesn’t fall,” he added.
As for India, Armitage, while sympathetic about Indian lives lost in attacks, said he hoped to hear that officials in New Delhi “have not quite run out of patience”.—Reuters
