April 5, 2003	Saturday	Safar 2, 1424

WASHINGTON: Pakistan is a politically weak country with nuclear weapons and has to be watched carefully lest it spins out of control and destabilizes the entire region, said speakers at a seminar in Washington this week.

Held a day after the Bush administration slapped new sanctions on KRL for allegedly importing missile technology from North Korea, the seminar at the Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, reflected the fears of a section of American society which views every Muslim country with suspicion after the Sept 11 terrorist attacks.

Scholars who spoke at the seminar titled “The state of Pakistan”, described Pakistan as a geo-politically important but politically weak country, facing “serious, ongoing and potentially catastrophic problems.” The Bush administration, they said, was not paying proper attention to this “potentially explosive” state.

“I don’t think anybody above the assistant secretary level is paying any attention to this (problem),” said Teresita C. Schaffer, director of the South Asia programme at the centre for Strategic and International Studies.

Some speakers also expressed doubts about Pakistan’s support to the US-led war against terrorism because, as one of them said, “strong pockets within the country oppose Islamabad’s alliance with Washington.”

Pakistani religious parties, the speakers said, are very strong and have influenced official policies in the recent past, when they supported the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and can do so again.

They argued that thousands of members of Al Qaeda — including Osama bin Laden — are believed to have taken refuge in Pakistan under a political and military regime with strong ties to fundamentalist Islamic terrorist groups. Elements within the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies had connections with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and longstanding ties with numerous other terrorist groups that were working to undermine Indian control of the disputed Kashmir region, they said.

Ms Schaffer, who was US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia from 1989 to 1992, said that American problems with Pakistan boiled down to a disconnect over several key issues. Although the Pakistan government had shown a willingness to help with the US ‘war on terrorism’ by providing critical intelligence services, the Musharraf regime had been unwilling to take the steps needed to prevent proliferation of the country’s nuclear technology and to reduce the chances for a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India over Kashmir.

George Perkovich, vice-president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that the Pakistani nuclear programme represented a greater non-proliferation problem than Iraq and a significant policy challenge for the United States.

Mr Perkovich said beyond the issues of nuclear war and the transfer of nuclear technology, the fragility of the social and political infrastructure in Pakistan remained a threat to the security of the country’s nuclear weapons. One real fear is that a militant Islamic government could emerge in Pakistan, either through a coup or an election, making Pakistan a nuclear-armed extremist Muslim state. There is also the remote possibility that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could become a stronger destabilizing force in the region if its warheads were redirected from India to other nations.

Christophe Jaffrelot, director of the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, a think tank in Paris, said the jihadis in Kashmir were back to business as usual. Such groups are also thought to be responsible for attacks against western targets, including one on the American consulate in Karachi last June.

“The jihadi groups have certainly been disturbed by the policies of Musharraf after January 2002, but they regrouped,” said Mr Jaffrelot. “They formed new movements.”

He noted that although it was not always easy to know who in the Pakistani government was helping such groups, it was clear that President Musharraf, had backed off on his opposition. Among the reasons the speaker cited for this was the recent increase in the political power of Pakistani Islamic fundamentalists, including a strong showing by extremist parties in parliamentary elections last year.

Anatol Lieven, a senior associate at Carnegie, said that despite problems with the Musharraf regime, the US government must remain engaged with Pakistan because it was an important strategic partner to the United States.

“We are doomed to work with and through Pakistani governments if we are to have any hope of any level of success in controlling terrorism emanating from Pakistan,” said Lieven.

Ms Schaffer said the war in Iraq had become a limiting factor that curtailed the United States’ ability to engage Pakistan on these important issues, and could actually exacerbate these problems.

She also noted that the Iraq war limited the US government’s ability to engage in the type of intense situation management that would be needed if Pakistan and India again came to the brink of nuclear conflict.