THE Pakistan-India peace process was resumed when Foreign Secretary Riaz Khan was invited to come to New Delhi on November 14 for two days of talks with his Indian counterpart. For Pakistan, the resumption of the composite dialogue process is a positive development, especially after the manner in which the Indians had abruptly interrupted it after the Mumbai bomb blasts in July. But for the Indians too, the resumption of the peace process, after the infusion of the “spirit of Havana”, must be a matter of satisfaction.

The talks were preceded by the usual statements from this end, especially from the foreign minister, a born optimist who even went to the extent of claiming that an agreement on Siachen within the next few days was very much on the cards. Not surprisingly, the Indian officials merely shrugged off this remark, while Indian papers reiterated that no such breakthrough was envisaged.

In any review of the peace process it is relevant to recall some of the recent developments. Notwithstanding our propaganda to the contrary, most governments in Islamabad have been desirous of living in peace with India. The elected governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif had taken steps to initiate the normalisation process. In fact, it goes to the credit of Nawaz Sharif that he not only eschewed criticism of India during the 1997 election campaign, but within weeks of coming to power, he had formulated a well thought-out plan for engagement with Delhi. In the process, he did not hesitate to confront his critics, declaring publicly that durable peace with India was to the advantage of Pakistan and the entire region.

General Musharraf, too, has been an advocate of the normalisation process, but his approach has been different from that of his predecessor. Admittedly, as the architect of the Kargil adventure, Musharraf was at a disadvantage, since the Indians viewed him with great suspicion. Though he still believes that Kargil was a great success, most independent analysts are of the view that Kargil was an unmitigated disaster. Internationally, Pakistan found itself isolated, with friends disappointed and major powers annoyed. This was understandable, given the expectation that having become a nuclear-weapon state, Pakistan would pursue responsible and restrained policies. Whatever the current leaders may claim, the fact is that had the Americans not been brought into the equation to ensure an effective ceasefire, disaster would have been inevitable.

But soon after having come to power, Musharraf recognised both the importance and urgency of resurrecting the peace process. His first foray into diplomacy at Agra, was, however, unsuccessful. Thereafter, Pakistan-India relations entered into a deep freeze that threatened to erupt into full-scale conflict as the Indians charged Pakistan with involvement in various acts of terrorism, including an attack on the Indian parliament. Pakistan had to lobby vigorously against these accusations and implore friendly capitals to use their influence with New Delhi to ensure an end to confrontation and the beginning of the peace process.

This wish was finally granted when Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during his visit to Islamabad in January 2004 agreed to restart the peace process. The Islamabad Declaration was hailed by the international community and claimed by Pakistan as a major diplomatic victory. But the price paid for the resumption of the process was much too high, for the Indians were able to extract an important diplomatic victory when Pakistan gave its assurance that it would not permit territory under its control to be used for terrorist acts. This amounted to an admission of its guilt and was unprecedented in that Pakistan unilaterally took on a responsibility that was not only almost impossible to honour, but even more importantly, it was given without any reciprocal obligation by the other side.

The dangers inherent in this approach were pointed out by a host of scholars, all of whom expressed the fear that this act of unilateral concession would come to haunt us at a later stage. The government’s half-hearted efforts to resile from this position met with strong resistance from India, which insisted on a reiteration of this commitment, every time Pakistan issued a joint statement with it.

Since then, it has been a sorry tale of Pakistan showing unnecessary haste and exuberance in pushing the peace process forward. Time after time, we have advocated what we call “thinking outside the box”, all of which has earned us kudos abroad. But the Indians have preferred to do no such thing, remaining firmly wedded to their stand, even at the risk of being branded “rigid and inflexible”. True, the two countries have agreed to a large number of confidence-building measures (CBMs) that have eased tension, introduced an element of civility and established an ambiance of cordiality leading people to believe that genuine, durable peace between the two countries is on the anvil. But in the process, we have abandoned established positions and made concessions that have weakened our negotiating position, especially on Kashmir.

India has proven repeatedly how wrong our hopes and expectations have been. For example, the April 2005 joint statement had stated that the peace process was “irreversible” and that no incident would be permitted to disrupt it. Nevertheless, soon after the Mumbai bomb blasts, the Indians called off the foreign secretary’s visit to Delhi and announced that the peace process would remain suspended until they had reviewed the situation.

It was revived only after the Musharraf-Manmohan meeting in Havana on September 16, and only after the Indians had succeeded in extracting another concession. This was our agreement to their demand that a separate mechanism be established to deal with the issue of terrorism. This, notwithstanding the fact that we already have the two interior secretaries discussing this issue which has also been taken up by the heads of Pakistan’s FIA and India’s CBI.

Still, the Indians would not budge from their insistence that a mechanism, specifically to deal with anti-terrorism issues, be established. Their thinking became evident when the Indian media presented this “mechanism” as the triumph of its diplomacy. The Indians leaders too claimed that the “India-Pakistan anti-terrorism mechanism” would be a “test of Pakistani intentions and capabilities to implement assurances that they have given us since January 2004.”

But New Delhi is never satisfied. Soon after dates for the foreign secretaries meeting was announced, the Indian prime minister warned on October 18 that New Delhi had “put Pakistan on notice that any democratic government of India would find it difficult to continue on the present path of addressing all outstanding issues, unless the government of Pakistan clearly deals with the issue of terrorism”.

Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, too, indulged in needless invective, when he expressed concern at the “marked deterioration in the international situation in Pakistan which has serious implications on overall stability and peace in the region.” This uncalled for reference to the internal situation in Pakistan, was not only against accepted norms of inter-state conduct, but also against the spirit of the various understandings, including the Havana Declaration. It rightly evoked a strong rebuttal from Pakistani officials, but the Indians continue to cast doubt on their promises as well as the country’s efforts in the war on terror.

Of course, the hapless officials of the foreign ministry are left to engage in an exercise in “damage limitation”, a skill that they have acquired over the past many years. Ever so often, the foreign office spokesperson reminds all and sundry, that it is time for the two countries to move forward on crucial issues, specially the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, adding that while we have made good progress on the CBMs, “we strongly believe now is the time to move towards the resolution of outstanding issues and disputes”. I gather that the just concluded Delhi meeting proceeded along well-known lines. We spoke about Kashmir, while the Indians focused on terrorism. They also tried to turn the latest round of foreign secretaries meeting into one devoted primarily to a discussion on anti-terrorism issues. But for some firm and skilful effort by the Pakistan side, the joint statement would have reflected this as the first issue. The Siachen issue too was reported to have been discussed, in the “spirit of Havana”, a euphemism for the September agreement between Musharraf and Manmohan Singh that enjoins the two countries “to build on convergences and narrow divergences”.

However, even before the foreign secretaries had concluded their talks, the Indians were pointing out that the setting up of the counter-terrorism mechanism and ensuring Pakistan’s cooperation on anti-terrorist investigation was its top priority. Amit Baruah writing in The Hindu on the eve of the talks claimed rightly that “India clearly pushed the anti-terror agenda to the forefront of the anti-terrorism dialogue.”

It would, therefore, appear that in its anxiety to have the composite dialogue process resumed, Pakistan has once again made a tactical mistake that is weakening its strategic interests. It appears not to have learnt any lessons from the error of January 2004.

Instead of recovering lost ground by ensuring that the resumed session focuses on the core political issues, after two years of CBMs Pakistan has allowed India to prepare a wicket of its choice, insisting that Islamabad play according to its rules of the game, namely by giving primacy to the war on terror. This is not only inherently in favour of the Indians, but has enabled them to keep Pakistan engaged in either CBMs or in a discussion on terror issues, with minimal attention and focus on core political issues, especially the issue of Kashmir. This approach will not resolve the political issues and therefore not bring genuine peace to the region.

The writer is a former ambassador.

NEVER have there been so many competing visions of the Middle East. Viewed from Israel, the central issue is an axis of evil that starts in Iran, passes through Syria (perceived as Tehran’s client number one) and moves on to the secondary clients, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

All are bent on destroying the Zionist state. Tuesday’s killing in Beirut of the Christian politician Pierre Gemayel, whose family worked with Israel during its 1980s invasion of Lebanon, is touted as new proof of the thesis.

Seen from Baghdad, Iran and Syria assume different roles. They are powerful neighbours who hold the keys to the country’s security. They can turn stability on or off, depending on their willingness to control the flow of weapons and money across their borders to local militias and foreign insurgents. This vision requires that Iran and Syria be treated with respect and talked to, not hectored and threatened.

In Kurdistan, Iraq’s uniquely stable northern region, the struggle is viewed as one between modernisers who believe in a democratic “new Iraq”, and traditionalists who held power and privilege during Saddam Hussein’s long regime and want revenge for his ousting. This contest between democratisers and authoritarians is at its starkest in Iraq, say Kurdish leaders, but it is the basic dynamic that runs throughout the Arab world.

Finally there are those, such as King Abdullah of Jordan, who perceive the issue as a battle between a newly awakened Shia minority against centuries of Sunni dominance throughout the region. They fear an arc of Shia militancy stretching from Tehran, through Baghdad, to large parts of Saudi Arabia — a religious tide with huge economic and geopolitical potential since it covers most of the area’s sources of oil.

The Bush administration is now split between advocates of these competing visions. Neocons who share the Israeli and Kurdish view and once believed the US could impose democracy on Iraq, both for its own sake but also to put pressure on the authoritarian regimes in Iran and Syria, are in retreat.

Sectarian civil war and the virtual collapse of law and order in Iraq, coupled with the nationalist insurgency’s unrelenting attrition of American soldiers’ lives, have “trapped” the US in Iraq, in the words of Kofi Annan this week. During the Vietnam war the word was “quagmire”, but the message is the same. American voters are frustrated and pessimistic. Several US columnists who supported the invasion now favour prompt withdrawal.

As a result, realists such as James Baker are gaining the upper hand. They want to bring Iraq’s neighbours into the picture and move the focus of US policy from regime change to regional stability, to hand the problem to Iraq’s neighbours then let the US pull back, keeping bases but no longer supplying frontline troops.

Iraq’s mounting crisis is changing the calculus in Tehran and Damascus as much as in Washington. Iran’s theocratic leaders never wanted a secular democracy in Iraq, but the argument that they welcome or even promote instability there because it keeps the Americans tied down and therefore unable to move on to invade Iran is unconvincing. It would be much better for Tehran to have a Shia-run junior-partner government in Baghdad that is secure enough to tell the Americans to leave.

That goal seemed to have been reached last December when Iraq’s elections gave victory to Shia religious parties with a four-year mandate. Then came Samarra. The massive explosion in February that destroyed the golden-domed al-Askari mosque that is especially sacred to Shias was Iraq’s 9/11, a terrorist masterstroke that changed a nation’s world-view.

All over Iraq, Shias decided Sunnis were out to deny them the success they had just won at the ballot box. Retaliatory attacks were launched on Sunni neighbourhoods, which then produced attacks on Shia ones, leading to an escalating sequence of horrendous revenge killings that now seems beyond anyone’s power to curtail — as Thursday’s wave of bloodletting in Baghdad emphasised.

What, in this crisis, can Iran offer its Iraqi friends? Not much. Iraq is already awash with guns and explosives. Whatever funds and weaponry the Iranian regime has been supplying to its friends, they are not enough to make a difference if they stop coming in now. Iran’s good contacts with the main militia leaders in Iraq may suggest it has leverage - except that these men themselves no longer control the welter of autonomous street gangs into which their followers have split.

So Iran’s call for a summit with Iraq and Syria is more a diplomatic ploy than a step that will bring results. Iran hopes to improve its image in the region as a responsible and major player while also helping to advance the Iraqi government’s growing disillusionment with the Americans. Beyond that there is little Iran can do.

Syria’s position has also shifted. President Bashar al-Assad was more outspoken than Tehran in calling, during the invasion, for the Americans to fail and subsequently for them to withdraw. But Iraq’s collapse into all-out civil war would not help him, nor would its possible consequence — the country’s fragmentation and the establishment of an Islamist mini-state in western Iraq. This could boost the Muslim Brotherhood, which commands considerable support in Syria, although it is still banned.

Syria, therefore, has as much of an interest in a stable Iraq as does Iran, provided the restoration of power to the central government means Baghdad then insists on an American retreat. Promise us an American withdrawal and we will give you stability — that is the line on which both Tehran and Damascus agree. They want to emerge as the architects of an arc of security, supplanting the US, which is increasingly seen in the region as a creator of chaos.

Assuming the role of a stabiliser also gives Syria useful diplomatic cards to play at another table. On the defensive over the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, and now even more so after Gemayel’s death, Syria needs to look good on another front. Helping Iraq is the chosen arena, which is the main reason why Assad sent his foreign minister to Baghdad this week to reopen diplomatic relations after a 24-year break. But it remains doubtful whether there is anything more substantial that Syria can offer.

As US influence wanes, neither Tehran nor Damascus can fill the void. Iraq has become a calamity that outsiders can only watch in horror. If cure there is, Iraqis will have to find it on their own. —Dawn/Guardian Service