December 17, 2008	Wednesday	Zilhaj 18, 1429

Archives Write to Mr. Mahir Ali

THE incursions by Indian Air Force planes into Pakistani territory at the weekend were probably intended to serve as a threat. If so, they are an ominous sign. Any attack by Indian forces against presumed jihadi sites would, in all likelihood, trigger off a wider conflict. The jihadis would welcome that, but no one else should.

Condoleezza Rice, John Negroponte and Gordon Brown are among the personalities who have descended on these parts, advising India to exercise restraint and prodding Pakistan to take action.

India could be excused for discerning a measure of hypocrisy in such importunations, which tend to contradict the Bush doctrine, whereby no distinction is to be made between terrorists and the states that harbour them. But, at the same time, India should not aspire to become the regional equivalent of the United States. The situation in Afghanistan — not to mention Iraq — should suffice as a deterrent.

No one can accurately calculate the number of terrorists the US has spawned in the name of fighting terrorism. And it hasn’t changed tack in the run-up to regime change in Washington. It would be sheer folly on the part of New Delhi to seek to emulate American failures. Terrorism undoubtedly needs to be combated, but it must be done intelligently. War between India and Pakistan would be disastrous on many fronts.

A report in last Saturday’s The Washington Post quoted Maulvi Nazir, described as the “head of a powerful Pakistani Taliban splinter group”, as saying: “We may have a dispute with the Pakistan government, but we would set aside our differences if our homeland was threatened by outside powers. We would raise a force of 15,000 tribal Taliban to fight on the side of Pakistan’s armed forces. We would infiltrate 500 suicide bombers into India to cause havoc there.”

Bluster of this variety is not particularly surprising. What provides cause for alarm is the Post’s elaboration that “several top officials of Pakistan’s … ISI said they welcomed the offers of support from Nazir and Taliban leaders such as Baitullah Mehsud”. This is the same Mehsud who is suspected of being behind the terrorist attack that killed Benazir Bhutto a year ago, an incident that Asif Zardari continues to cite as proof that he is as much a victim of terrorism as anyone else.

If these top officials of the ISI are not on the same side as the nation’s president, then Pakistan is in deeper trouble than anyone could have imagined.

Rice, Negroponte and Brown are right in cautioning the government of Manmohan Singh against recklessness. They should, of course, have offered the same advice to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. It is also not difficult to understand why they are putting pressure on Pakistan.

The civilian government in Islamabad has, from the outset, expressed its willingness to act against suspected terrorists and support groups. The trouble is, its words hold little value. It is actions that count. And yes, it has acted, too. Suspected Lashkar-i-Taiba training camps have been raided and a clampdown against Jamaatud Dawa has been initiated. Those taken into custody apparently include Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, purportedly the Lashkar’s chief of operations and one of the masterminds behind the Mumbai massacres. Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who is said to have delivered motivational lectures to the 10 young men dispatched to India, is meanwhile under a not particularly strict form of house arrest.

Not surprisingly, India is unimpressed by these gestures. After all, Pakistan’s usual practice in such cases is to hold such people for a few months and then to quietly let them go. Islamabad is well within its rights, however, to ask for evidence on the basis of which legal proceedings can be initiated against any of the accused. Nor can it reasonably be expected to hand over Pakistani citizens on the basis of lists provided by New Delhi. Wanted culprits such as Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon fall in a different category, whether or not there is any connection between them and last month’s atrocities.

Such a connection is certainly well worth investigating, though. Misha Glenny, the author of McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers, wrote in The Guardian on Dec 1 that “the operational key to the Mumbai attacks ... is almost certainly held by D-Company”. The claim appeared to be based on a strong hunch rather than proof, but similar suggestions have been made elsewhere. It has also been said that neither the ISI nor the CIA would welcome the prospect of Dawood being interrogated or put on trial in India, which probably means his whereabouts will officially remain unknown.

On a broader plane, however, it would be deeply unfortunate for the present disagreements between India and Pakistan to turn into a dangerous impasse. Islamabad has offered to send a team of investigators, but given the near certainty that all of the perpetrators came from Pakistan, it would probably make a great deal more sense to invite an Indian investigation team, whose members could work in tandem with their local counterparts. Meaningful cooperation along these lines could go a long way towards diminishing the suspicion that Pakistan’s authorities are unwilling to go much beyond paying lip service to the concept of jointly combating terrorism.

It is not particularly helpful, meanwhile, to pretend that Pakistan is being scapegoated or miscast as the epicentre of Islamist terrorism. An article in published in The New York Times last week under Zardari’s byline noted: “Pakistan was an ally of the West throughout the Cold War. The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists as an instrument of destruction of a superpower. The strategy worked, but its legacy was the creation of an extremist militia with its own dynamic. Pakistan continues to pay the price.”

That’s a welcome admission — although the “world” in question consisted primarily of the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan — not because it’s a novel disclosure, but because the parties involved rarely admit their Frankensteinian past. It’s hardly surprising that Saeed and Lakhvi are both veterans of that good jihad. Of course, the past cannot be undone, but it may just about still be possible to secure the future, provided the civilian and military authorities don’t operate at cross purposes.

A host of factors, external as well as internal, have contributed to the spread of toxic fanaticism in Pakistani society. The primary sources responsible for spreading the poison need to be curbed not so much to please the US or to appease India, but chiefly because they carry the germs of a potentially terminal affliction.

mahir.worldview@gmail.com