January 05, 2009	Monday	Muharram 07, 1430

WASHINGTON, Jan 4: The United States is once again being pushed into playing a major role in an India-Pakistan dispute — this time by New Delhi which wants Washington to persuade Islamabad to hand over Mumbai terror suspects.

India is sending a special emissary — Home Minister P. Chidambaram — to Washington this week as part of a global diplomatic offensive aimed at isolating Pakistan.

Washington is also sending its pointsman for South Asia, Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher, to the region for defusing tensions between the two nuclear neighbours.

Even before embarking upon his journey, Mr Chidambaram indicated a major change in India’s position. So far India seemed inclined to accept the Pakistani claim that if there was a Pakistani involvement, it was at the level of “non-state actors”.

But Mr Chidambaram now insists that the sophistication of the Mumbai attack points to the involvement of ‘state actors’ in Pakistan.

Diplomatic observers in Washington believe that this change in India’s attitude is not necessarily linked to the “irrefutable evidence” of Pakistan’s involvement that Mr Chidambaram claims to have unearthed.

Instead, his statement aims at convincing Washington that it needs to back the Indian demand that Pakistan hand over the suspects to India.

Diplomatic observers say that initially, the Indians did receive some support but at a certain point the Americans stopped when they realised that pushing Pakistan beyond that point could be counter-productive.

The observers noted that while Pakistan was not yet out of trouble; it had succeeded in strongly conveying its message to the United States on two major points: no Pakistani ‘state actor’ was involved in the Mumbai attacks and that no Pakistani government could afford to hand over Pakistani citizens to India. The political backlash of such an action would be so severe that no government could risk it.

Reports in the US and Indian media also indicate that the Pakistanis were unusually frank in telling the Americans how they would react if India launched air strikes inside Pakistan to destroy suspected terrorist targets.

One such report claims that this issue was discussed candidly between Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and Pakistan’s Army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani when the admiral visited Pakistan last month.

“When asked to stand down for a bit, General Kayani showed Admiral Mullen a picture of an IAF Mirage-2000 locked in the sights of a Pakistani F-16. Admiral Mullen was informed that ‘We will shoot down the next one that violates Pakistani airspace’. The Indian Air Force has since then backed off,” the report said.

Other media reports noted that in the meeting the Pakistanis also showed Admiral Mullen the evidence of India’s involvement in fomenting troubles in Fata and Balochistan.

The observers noted that the Pakistani establishment also used the media to convey its message. Reports published in US newspapers after the Mumbai attacks often quoted retired Pakistani generals as saying that if Pakistan feared defeat in a conventional war, it would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons.

Such statements – while condemned as sabre-rattling – did invoke the fear that an Indian attack on Pakistan could ultimately lead to a nuclear conflict in one of the world’s most populous region.

But observers in Washington say that the US reluctance to push Islamabad beyond a certain point also reflects Washington’s desire to seriously implement its policy of ‘de-hyphenation,’ i.e. to pursue truly independent relations with both India and Pakistan.

Mr Boucher referred to this policy when defending the US decision to sign a nuclear deal with India, saying that signing any deal with India does not necessarily mean that the United States was obliged to reach a similar deal with Pakistan.

Similarly, when the Indians objected to granting the status of a major non-Nato ally to Pakistan or to selling F-16 aircraft, the Americans reminded them that their defence arrangements with Pakistan were independent from their friendship with India.

The policy underlines a realisation in Washington that both India and Pakistan are crucial for protecting US interests in South Asia and that’s why observers believe that Washington will not do much to persuade Pakistan to hand over the Mumbai terror suspects to India.