'Indians are bastards anyway'

HUA HIN, Thailand - Indians are "a slippery, treacherous people", said president Richard Nixon. "The Indians are bastards anyway. They are the most aggressive goddamn people around," echoed his assistant for national security affairs, Henry Kissinger. The setting: a White House meeting on July 16, 1971, during the run-up to the India-Pakistan war which ultimately led to the birth of Bangladesh, erstwhile East Pakistan.

The US State Department recently declassified some of the Nixon White House tapes and secret documents that bring to light the way in which the Nixon administration went about the Bangladesh saga, reflecting the potential of mindsets and personal equations taking precedence over ground realities in White House decisionmaking.

In 1971, some 3 million people are estimated to have been killed in the genocide unleashed by Pakistan's military government on East Pakistan, leading to a rush of refugees into India, drawing India into a swift and decisive war that eventually forced Pakistan's hand. But all along, the Nixon administration sided with the military establishment of Pakistan over democratic India because of Nixon's "special relationship" with Pakistan's handsome military dictator, General Yahya Khan, and his uncontrolled revulsion at the "old witch" Indira Gandhi, India's then prime minister.

Despite the avowed goal of containing war, the US administration, in its zeal to put India in a spot, even went to the extent of pleading with the Chinese to initiate troop movements toward the Indian border in coordination with Pakistan, and assured it support in case the Soviet Union jumped into the fray. Near the end of the war, in a highly secret meeting on December 10, 1971, Kissinger pitched the idea to Chinese ambassador to the UN, Huang Ha. The declassified documents reveal that China took a couple of days to think about it and finally said it was not game, much to Kissinger's disappointment.

The seeds of the Bangladesh war were sown in India's freedom in 1947, which came with a bloody partition, with India keeping the Hindu-dominated areas of British India and Pakistan the Muslim-dominated ones - to the extent they were geographically divisible. The Pakistan that was born as a result had two flanks - East and West. East Pakistan comprised the Muslim-majority Bengali-speaking areas, while West Pakistan consisted of primarily Urdu-speaking Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and North-West Frontier Province.

Separated by 1,200 miles, East and West Pakistan were hardly comfortable in the compact. Though the East was more populous, West Pakistan cornered the bulk of the Pakistani budget. The West was given more representation in the legislature than the East, and further fueling Bengali sub-nationalism, Urdu was made the official language. West Pakistan, with a 97% Muslim population, was also far less liberal than the East, where at least 15% of the population did not practice Islam. With Pakistan mostly under military rulers - all from West Pakistan - since 1958, any scope for political accommodation was limited. Successive military regimes tried to deal with the problem the only way they knew how - savage repression, adding to the spiral of hatred and tyranny.

The relationship between the two Pakistans became progressively more neo-colonial, with the protest against the West's domination growing shriller by the day in the East. The tension reached a flashpoint when in 1970, the Awami League led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman swept the national elections, winning 167 of the 169 seats allotted for East Pakistan, giving it a majority in the 313-seat National Assembly and the right to form government at the center. Neither West Pakistani political leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto nor General Yahya Khan would accept this Bengali ascendancy in national politics, and the convention of the newly elected National Assembly was postponed indefinitely. The Awami League, now convinced that there could never be any political cohabitation between the East and the West, called for "full regional autonomy" and Mujibar Rahman announced that he was taking over the East's administration.

The military now decided enough was enough. At a meeting of the military top brass, Yahya declared: "Kill 3 million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands." Accordingly, on the night of March 25, 1971, the Pakistan army launched "Operation Searchlight" to "crush" Bengali resistance in which Bengali members of military services were disarmed and killed, students and the intelligentsia systematically liquidated and able-bodied Bengali males just picked up and gunned down. Death squads roamed the streets of Dacca, killing some 7,000 people in a single night. "Within a week, half the population of Dacca had fled. All over East Pakistan, people were taking flight, and it was estimated that in April, some 30 million people were wandering helplessly across East Pakistan to escape the grasp of the military," writes Robert Payne in Massacre. Mujibur Rahman was arrested and the Awami League - which should have been ruling Pakistan - banned.

Then began the rapes. In Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Susan Brownmiller likens it to the Japanese rapes in Nanjing and German rapes in Russia during World War II. "... 200,000, 300,000 or possibly 400,000 women (three sets of statistics have been variously quoted) were raped." Reporter Aubrey Menen describes an incident targeting a just-married couple: "Two [Pakistani soldiers] went into the room that had been built for the bridal couple. The others stayed behind with the family, one of them covering them with his gun. They heard a barked order, and the bridegroom's voice protesting. Then there was silence until the bride screamed. Then there was silence again, except for some muffled cries that soon subsided. In a few minutes one of the soldiers came out, his uniform in disarray. He grinned to his companions. Another soldier took his place in the room. And so on, until all the six had raped the belle of the village. Then they left. The father found his daughter lying on the string cot unconscious and bleeding. Her husband was crouched on the floor, kneeling over his vomit." (Quoted in Brownmiller's Against Our Will.)

As East Pakistan bled, refugees began to pour into India, some 8-10 million over the period of the genocide. India repeatedly pleaded with the US administration that it could not cope with any more refugees, and appealed that it use its influence over Pakistan and rein in Yahya. But Nixon continued to condone the repression. To a Pakistani delegation to Washington, DC, he said: "Yahya is a good friend. I understand the anguish of the decisions which Yahya had to make." Strangely, in his eyes, the military dictator was the victim - one forced so much against the wall that he had to conduct mass murders and rapes.

Even American consul general Archer Blood couldn't take his administration's position any more. In an act of open rebellion, he sent a telegram through the "dissent channel", condemning his country for failing "to denounce the suppression of democracy"; "to denounce atrocities", and for "bending over backwards to placate the West Pakistan-dominated government". "We, as professional public servants express our dissent with current policy and fervently hope that our true and lasting interests here can be defined and our policies redirected in order to salvage our position as a moral leader of the world," the telegram read. Nixon's answer: "Don't squeeze Yahya at this time." Both the consul general and the head of the United States Information Service were subsequently transferred out for their anti-Pakistan views to prevent "any further negative reporting on the situation".

In India, US ambassador Kenneth Keating also made it clear that "military aid to Pakistan is just out of the question now while they are still killing in East Pakistan and refugees are fleeing across the border". He told Kissinger on June 3, 1971: "We are on the threshold of better relations with the one stable democracy in that part of the world. They are making real progress and want to be more friendly with us." Replied Kissinger: "In all honesty, the president has special feelings for Yahya. One cannot make policy on that basis, but it is a fact of life."

Nixon had a simple explanation for the wayward behavior of his ambassadors. At a meeting with members of the Senior Review Group in August 1971, he said: "Ambassadors who go to India fall in love with India. Some have the same experience in Pakistan, though not as many because the Pakistanis are a different breed. The Pakistanis are straightforward and sometimes extremely stupid. The Indians are more devious, sometimes so smart that we fall for their line."

Even as the refugee situation was escalating, the Nixon administration kept playing politics. Sample this conversation at the White House a day after George Harrison and his soul mate, Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar, held the "Concert for Bangladesh" to raise money for the refugees. "So who is the Beatle giving the money to - is it the goddamn Indians?" asks Nixon. "Yes," says Kissinger, adding that Pakistan had also been given $150,000 in food aid, but the major problem "is the goddamn distribution". Nixon butts in: "We have to keep India away." Agrees Kissinger: "We must defuse the refugee and famine problem in East Pakistan in order to deprive India of an excuse to start war. We have to avoid screwing Pakistan that outrageously ... We should start our goddamn lecturing on political structures as much as we can, and while there will eventually be a separate East Bengal in two years, it must not happen in the next six months."

By now India had completely given up on the US. In August 1971, it ended its non-aligned stance and signed the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union to safeguard itself against any American intervention. At the end of October, Indira Gandhi embarked on a tour of Moscow, Washington and several Western capitals to assess the international mood. It is widely believed that she had already planned to attack East Pakistan before this public relations tour.

Nixon and Kissinger met at the Oval Office on the morning of November 5 to discuss the president's conversation with Indira on the previous day. Kissinger's assessment: "While she was a bitch, we got what we wanted ... She will not be able to go home and say that the United States didn't give her a warm reception and therefore in despair she's got to go to war." Replied Nixon: "We really slobbered over the old witch." After she got home, the "old witch" wrote to Nixon: "I sincerely hope that your clear vision will guide relations between our two democracies and will help us to come closer. It will always be our effort to clear any misunderstanding and not to allow temporary differences to impede the strengthening of our friendship."

Within a day of Gandhi's return on November 21, Indian forces attacked East Pakistan at five key areas. Yahya's 70,000 soldiers deployed in the East were hopelessly outnumbered against the 200,000 Indian troops and the Mukti Bahini, Bengali guerrilla freedom fighters. Within 10 days, India had completely taken over the East. On December 16, after a final genocidal burst, Pakistan surrendered unconditionally. Awami leader Sheikh Mujibar Rahman was released and returned to establish Bangladesh's first independent parliament.

The US government supplied military equipment worth $3.8 million to the Pakistani dictatorship after the genocide started, even after telling Congress that all shipments to the regime had ceased. Throughout the war, the US government tried everything in its power to hinder India. The US policy included support of Pakistan in the United Nations, where it branded India as the aggressor, and putting pressure on the Soviets to discourage India, with the threat that the US-Soviet detente would be in jeopardy if Moscow did not play ball. When war broke out, Nixon promptly cut off economic aid to India, and at one point dispatched the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal to "intimidate" India. When nothing worked, it pleaded China to join the war to scare off India.

As millions suffered in East Pakistan, the only focus, an obsessive one, of the Nixon administration continued to be China. One of the reasons why Nixon sided with Yahya - apart from "he has been more decent to us than she [Indira] has" - was that the general was his conduit with China. In a personal letter of thanks to Yahya for his role in Sino-American rapprochement, Nixon wrote, "Those who want a more peaceful world in the generation to come will forever be in your debt." Yes, indeed. But once the war ended, the same US policy changed overnight. It quickly spotted a regional hegemon in India, and began to respect it. Though it had made it clear before the war that it would never have anything to do with Bangladesh, ever, it advised Pakistan to accept India's ceasefire offer, recognized the new country, and went about building bridges with India.

In that sense, this war was the turning point in Indo-US relations, triggering a slow and long process of engaging Delhi - a policy that picked up steam under Bill Clinton and accelerated further under George W Bush. Testifying before the House International Relations Subcommittee for Asia and the Pacific, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Christina Rocca, last week said: "We are accelerating the transformation of our relationship with India, with a number of new initiatives." With India "this is a watershed year", she said, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh scheduled to visit the US next month and President Bush promising to go to India some time later this year".

Seen as a possible counterweight to the same China for which it sacrificed the lives and honor of millions of Bangladeshi men and women three decades ago, the US is even said to be tilting to India as a possible permanent UN Security Council member. Even Kissinger has come out strongly in favor of a permanent seat for India. "I'm known as a strong advocate and one of the originators of close relations with China. I believe that today I am also a strong advocate of close relations with India," he was recently quoted as saying. Bring home the bastards, such are the compulsions of geopolitics.

This is the same India whose nuclear tests a few years ago drew sanctions from the US. But as in the Bangladesh war, it has lost little time in reversing its position. Now it conducts military exercises with India and offers to make fighter jets with it. In addition to US Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns' agenda when he reaches India on Friday is, curiously, a deal on civilian nuclear energy, which may be unveiled during Manmohan Singh's trip. This serial policy infidelity has only one explanation: the US understands power, and respects power. That's why it pounces on Iraq and engages North Korea. Manmohan Singh would do well to remember this when he embarks on his trip to the US to chase India's UN dream. Groveling won't help, growling might.

And yes, he might also consider coloring up his staid beard a tad lest a declassified UN document 30 years hence finds him mentioned as an "old fogey".

Debasish Roy Chowdhury is a Correspondent for Asia Times Online based in Thailand.

And some further grist for the mill:

AMERICA'S PAKISTAN POLICY

by Vijai K Nair, February 6, 2004

This comes courtesy of Vjai Nair, whom I have known for some years.

I hope and trust that he will not mind its being sent on, I believe it is vital reading for us all.

AMERICA'S PAKISTAN POLICY

by Vijai K Nair

In light of the fact that the logic of deterrence is an element of the larger strategy of terrorism America's Pakistan policy transcends the recognised bounds of logic & commonsense.

The unleashing of nuclear power in advancing political objectives was really the first ever act that succeeded in creating levels of 'terror' collectively in the entire human race. It demonstrated an unparalleled capacity to overpower the minds of Statesmen through a singular and instantaneous act of violence, the threat of which could terrorise them into conforming with the desired political goals of its possessor. In other words - the final deterrent - the first known instrument of 'inter state terrorism - the "policy of deterrence has its root in the Latin word terrere, which means " to frighten with an overwhelming terror.'"

For four decades the stability of the global security environment has been the product of a nuclear stand off between the two super powers - the Soviet Union and the United States - which was managed by an evolving philosophy on which deterrence strategies were based.

The management of the global security paradigm was, therefore, based on containing the conflict threshold between these two super powers and their allies through nuclear deterrence while concurrently restricting the horizontal spread of nuclear weapons to the five original nuclear weapon states so as to avoid uncalled for turbulence in the prevalent nuclear weapons configuration. The first was managed by creating appropriate strategic forces and systems to guarantee deterrence. The second requirement was met by a set of arms control treaties at the international level starting with the Nonproliferation Treaty [NPT] periodically enhanced by technology restrictive regimes, and at individual state levels by imposing nonproliferation laws such as the ones put into place by the US.
However with the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union the prevailing nuclear deterrence strategies - as designed to meet Cold War imperatives - lost the raison d'etre of their creation. The US - that predicates its national security on nuclear weapons - was the most affected State and the strategic community was at a loss on how to reconfigure US deterrence strategy to a new world order where the direction and nature of the threat was unknown.

THE LOGIC OF DETERRENCE
As early as September 1993 President Clinton defined the problem while addressing the United Nations General Assembly -
"One of our most urgent priorities must be attacking the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction whether they are nuclear, chemical or biological, and the ballistic missiles that can rain them down on populations hundreds of miles away --- If we do not stem the proliferation of the world's deadliest weapons, no democracy can feel secure."

For one whole decade thereafter the strategic community in the US has been groping in the wilderness to formulate a viable deterrence strategy on which to base the national security policy. But the mutating global security environment has added to the complications including:
1. India and Pakistan going overtly nuclear thereby effectively pulling the rug out from under the NPT which is based on there being only five nuclear weapon states.
2. The advent of terrorism as a major tool to wage war against states with superior modern military means.
3. Evidence that terrorist groups aspired to acquire WMD capabilities, which perforce resulted in their dependence on state sponsorship.
4. "New or Emerging WMD threats from rogue states makes it difficult to predict future deterrence requirements."
5. The recognition by lesser-endowed states' of a necessity to pool their resources to develop and create strategic capabilities through clandestine proliferation.
6. And, by no means the least, the first known direct attack on the North American homeland with indications of a follow up threat of a WMD attack against which, traditional nuclear deterrent strategies are redundant.
The peculiarity of the resulting phenomenon is the emergence of a strategic milieu with two common - though disparate - denominators - the United States and Pakistan; both playing major roles in the evolution of the dynamics of international nuclear weapons environment and the fast blooming relationship it is developing with terrorism. As seen in the ongoing US-Iraq war the two are inseparable and have fundamentally affected the use of military force in pursuit of political policy.
The former in its determination to reinforce its competencies to freeze and roll back nuclear weapon and missile proliferation has initiated a number of far reaching policies with appropriate structures and systems such as; the nuclear counter-proliferation policy; nuclear proliferation review(s) [NPR] of 1994 and 2001; the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act of 1994; the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction of December 2002; the House Policy Committee's "Differentiation and Defense: Agenda for Nuclear Weapons Program" of February 2003; and President Bush's National Security Strategy (NSS), issued September 20, 2002, advocating the preemptive option to a policy doctrine. The last explicitly driven by the recognition that the United States would have to design its nuclear deterrence with a clear linkage to coping with terrorism.
Pakistan's linkages are in direct contravention to US policy goals. In the full knowledge of the United States it continues to thrive with impunity: in importing strategic ballistic missiles from North Korea and China: transfer of Uranium enrichment technology, materials to North Korea; was implicated in the transfer of nuclear weapons technology to Iraq in 1990-1991; denial of access to the US of its nuclear scientists that cooperated with Osama bin Laden in the Al Quaida's WMD programme; the involvement of Pakistani citizens in all cases of alleged attempts to launch clandestine WMD attacks against the US and its allies gives rise to concerns; and, the inability of Islamabad to account for 12 missing nuclear scientists that could be assisting in the nuclear programmes underway in Al Kufra, Iran, Myanmar and North Korea. Furthermore in direct contravention to the policies of its ally in the war against terrorism Islamabad is unabashedly a State Sponsor of terrorism having ingeniously incorporated it into its national defence policy to wage 'proxy war' as it is doing against India. This makes it extremely difficult to understand how the United States State Department reconciles the logic of policies shaped to include Pakistan as its most favoured ally in the American War against terrorism.
An even more worrisome factor is that while the United States is the primary target for terrorism by the Al Quaida and other Islamic terrorist groups Islamabad and its infamous Inter Services Intelligence Agency continues to provide safe haven and wherewithal for these very same terrorists.
In spite of these contradictions - as one US citizen puts it - "the relationship between the United States and Pakistan is getting curiouser and curiouser."

PAKISTAN: THE PERFIDIOUS PROLIFERATE
Recent disclosures of intelligence, not so recently acquired, suggest that Pakistan is not just one element of the global nuclear proliferation problem but the very core that links it to a surprisingly large range of aspiring nuclear proliferates that are high on the US nonproliferation hit list. Inexplicably Washington has displayed remarkable tolerance of this perfidious violation of its primary national interest - nuclear nonproliferation. Instead of the domestically mandated punitive action the US leadership has resorted to convulsive political rhetoric that gives Pakistan's propensity to proliferate a singular legitimacy.
Common wisdom has it that where there is smoke there is fire. The smoke of proliferation emanating from Pakistan envelopes the whole of Asia. The extent of the fire below this dangerous smoke screen is further obscured by a reprehensive cover up by politically motivated vested interests of extra regional powers and threatens to scorch the very fabric of the prevailing global security environment.
The consistency with which the US nonproliferation laws have been applied to the Indian Union is equaled only by US tolerance of Pakistan's questionable activities to create a comprehensive nuclear proliferation regime that effectively defeats US nonproliferation strategies.
The head in sand ostrich-like approach to Pakistan's nuclear perfidies is extremely well documented from the time that US intelligence agencies reported the clandestine acquisition and transfer of nuclear weapons related technology and materials by Abdul Qadeer Khan from the laboratories he worked with in the Netherlands to date. The string of reports recounting the murky trail of Pakistan's radioactive spoor from the source to its current nuclear weapons capability and those of North Korea can be traced to the laboratories of many of the worlds aspiring proliferates including numerous efforts by Pakistani agents to illegally acquire nuclear weapons related sub-assemblies and materials from the US - where the culprits have been apprehended and convicted without any commensurate action against Pakistan.
Then there is confirmed intelligence of the transfer of the complete nuclear warhead design from China in 1982 in the full knowledge of the US Administration that was providing a $4 Billion plus grant on a four yearly basis to keep Pakistan afloat. The sino-Pak nuclear weapons collusion is amply recorded and besides war head design includes: participation of Pakistani nuclear scientists at all nuclear weapon testing, provision of nuclear capable M-9 missiles, material and technological support to Pakistan's indigenous missile production facilities, provision of ring magnets to revitalise the uranium enrichment centrifuges at Kahuta and a long list of similar acts of collusion. The US has shown exceptional tolerance for these activities even in the pre-9/11 period where Islamabad's relevance to the US strategic being was limited, if at all.

Proliferating to Non-State Players
Pakistan's credentials as a US ally in the War against terrorism notwithstanding, it is the first instance where cognizable evidence has surfaced of a State's complicity in the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology to terrorists it has sponsored. It is now well known that the Al Qaeda - prime US enemy in the war against terrorism - was successful in getting Pakistani scientific support to further its aspirations to acquire nuclear weapons. Albeit at the time of exposure this assistance was limited to means and methods to put together a radiological "dirty bomb" only. According to Pakistani intelligence officials in December 2001, the arrest and interrogation of Pakistani nuclear scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudiri Abdul Majeed, resulted in admissions of their having had 'extensive and detailed exchanges' with Al Quaida officials including Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri in August 2001 about the manufacture of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.
Of particular significance is the period during which this exchange took place - August 2001 - prior to the September 11 events, when the ISI and Pak military were in total control of Afghanistan and had their own men manning the more important administrative posts in the Taliban Government. These worthies could not have indulged in such flagrant violation of Pakistan's Secrets Act without the endorsement of Islamabad. But this is not all. US intelligence agencies had identified four other scientists along with Mahmood and Majeed as suspected accomplices in the proliferation conspiracy. Musharraf's government refused permission for the interrogation of two and claimed that the other two were away to Myanmar and beyond Pakistan's jurisdiction. The US has not been able to interrogate these suspects and strangely, after the initial reports Washington appears to have reconciled itself to Pakistani claims of non-involvement. One senior US intelligence officer went so far as to remark that the Sino-Pak proliferation bond and China's strategic hold over Myanmar facilitated a secure haven for the wanted men. The only reason Pakistan would resort to such a transparent subterfuge would be because the interrogation of the Pak scientists secluded in Myanmar could provide the 'smoking gun' of Pakistan's complicity in nuclear proliferation to terrorist groups.
To add insult to injury a recent report published by the US Based South Asia Tribute Online, quoting documents from Pakistani nuclear power plant CHASNUPP, at least nine senior Pakistani scientists have absconded from the country between February 2000 and July 2002. Where they went and to whom they transferred their allegiance is anyone's guess. According to Dr Albright, maverick Pakistani nuclear scientists have acquired a significant value in the international market, which could fundamentally destabilize the status quo of nuclear powers with serious consequences to the global security environment.
Seymour Hersh quotes an American nonproliferation expert, "Right now, the most dangerous country in the world is Pakistan. If we're incinerated next week, it'll be because of HEU [highly enriched uranium] that was given to Al Quaida by Pakistan."
The International Proliferation Club
A close scrutiny of Pakistan's nuclear programme reveals how the perfidious proliferate is connected to all the more dangerous elements active in the global scheme of nuclear proliferation that are of particulr concern to the United States. Dr Albright points to the involvement of Pakistani scientists in the Iranian nuclear programme. The CIA has identified Pakistan "as both a supplier of nuclear technology to North Korea" and recipient of nuclear deliverable missile technology in exchange. According to Seymour Hersh the classified part of the report unambiguously states that Pakistan has been sharing sophisticated technology, warhead design information and weapons testing data with North Korea. The London Times alleges a Pakistani scientist offered to build Iraq's nuclear arsenal. Former UN inspectors having access to Iraqi Secret Service documents disclosed how "Pakistan had deflected and frustrated a UN probe of an offer to Iraq of nuclear weapons know how allegedly made on behalf of Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan's atomic bomb."
More recently in mid-March 2003 Japan's Sankei Shimbin Paper quoted an unnamed US security official that North Korea transferred 10 Scud B Missiles, with the range of 185 miles, to Pakistan well after US Secretary of State, General Collin Powell, extracted a "promise" from President Musharraf that future clandestine transfer of nuclear technology and ballistic missiles between the two States would not continue. But then the two Generals have a history of such promissory exchanges.
None of this is newly acquired information but has been available to US intelligence agencies and the State Departments' Bureaus for Nonproliferation and South Asia Affairs for a number of years. According to a report in Japanese media quoted by the Pakistani Jang Group of Newspapers - "Pakistan has informed the United States that a number of its scientists and military officers were 'personally' involved in providing nuclear arms technology to North Korea." A communication that was made to a specific US request on its already having acquired this intelligence of transfer of nuclear technology from Pakistan to North Korea. The money trail led from North Korea to personal accounts of Pakistani scientists and senior military officers. Analysts are skeptical of Musharraf's efforts to fob off nuclear leakages to individual initiatives as the numerous deals concerning Pakistan's most sensitive strategic assets with foreign governments could not have been engineered without the blessings of the powers in Islamabad.
According to Robert J Einhorn, who as the Assistant Secretary of State for Non-proliferation steered Washington's non-proliferation policies from 1992 to 2000, "If the international community had a proliferation most wanted list, A.Q Khan would be most wanted on the list." A sad commentary considering Khan has been the head honcho of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme. What is difficult to digest is that in the full knowledge of this the Nonproliferation bureau failed or avoided to take cognizance of the threat or to apply US Congressionally mandated laws making it equally culpable in the inexorable demolition of US nonproliferation policies.
This proclivity for mendacity in its conduct of business by the State Department's Bureau for Non-proliferation as also the Bureau for South Asian Affairs is particularly disconcerting for the strategic community in Delhi, as they perceive geometrically progressive increments in the nuclear threat adding substantially to the degree of difficulty for managers of India's security policies.
Pakistan's role as the linchpin of the proliferation regime in Asia is incontestable. Musharraf's denials hold as much water as his professions to have stopped cross border terrorist infiltration in J&K. On both counts India finds itself on the receiving end. One would have thought that US national interests have been compromised sufficiently for the sleeping giant to take cognizance of Pakistan's perfidious proliferation and its support of terrorist groups operating against US forces in the Tribal areas bordering on Afghanistan. But Washington's actions belie that belief.
The situation resembles a ticking bomb. If it is not deactivated or appropriately smothered it will explode creating a chaotic state of affairs beyond even the competencies of the sole super power to deal with. The repercussions on India and its national interests will be particularly grave as it lies at the focal point of the arc of nuclear proliferation - a product of the 'international Proliferation club' as also the Pan Islamic Jihadi movement.
Therefore in its own way in keeping with its capabilities India needs to formulate and put into operation strategies to safeguard its national security imperatives - the responses of the international community notwithstanding.

PAKISTAN'S DUPLICTY GETS THE BETTER OF US GULIBILITY
It is now indisputably clear that sovereign subjects of Pakistan on its sovereign soil are actively undermining America's war against terrorism and this too under the tutelage of Prevez Musharraf, for whom Washington has gone to amazing lengths in the belief that he alone can deliver. One example is its apparent acquiescence to Sino-Pak and North Korean-Pak collaboration to undermine US nonproliferation policy - a critical national interest..
Within its larger strategic scheme the US decided to rely heavily on Pakistan in its war against terrorism but over the last eighteen months the latter has demonstrated a singularly duplicitous strategy that has frustrated all US efforts to bring the Taliban and Al Quaida to heel. If anything the terrist counter offensive by these groups in Afghanistan has gained a dangerously surprising momentum. The so-called cooperating coalition partner has successfully managed to obstruct the US to the point that it is fast finding its military bogged in a virulent guerilla war in Afghanistan. The latest disclosure is the induction of Gulbadin Hekmatyar into the mess we refer to as the War against Terrorism.
Gulbadin Hekmatyar, a Pashtun war lord was the key player in Pakistan's scheme to bring Afghanistan into its fold so as to extend its strategic depth after the US-Russian conflict petered out in the 1990s. It was Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence Agency [ISI] that cultivated Hekmatyar, installed him as the Prime Minister of Afghanistan, and supported him by providing the military means and material to bring the assortment of differing tribes into a unified Afghanistan. However as this strategy unfolded and resistance of the non-Pashtun tribes in Northern and Eastern Afghanistan increased Hekmatyar had serious differences with the ISI leading to a split. The ISI then engineered his removal from the leadership and put in place the Taliban - a movement created in Pakistan based on its indigenous Pashtun population and on the Islamic theology of extremist fundamentalists. Hekmatyar and his following escaped to Iran, which had its own reservations of the Sunni regime that was being foisted on Afghanistan.
Islamabad then made sure that all key positions in the Taliban Government and its military were manned by Pakistanis owing allegiance to the ISI. Control was further strengthened by suitably locating troops from the Pakistan Army at key locations that formed the core of the fighting forces tasked to defeat and subjugate the Hazaras, Uzbeks and Tajiks - fierce Shia muslims - that could not and would not accept the tenets of fundamental Sunni Pashtuns that comprised the Pakistan structured Taliban.
The inability of the Taliban to subjugate the Northern Alliance fighting under the leadership of Ahmed Masood lead to yet another quantitative change in the ISI planned and executed military operations. The presence of Pakistan Army assets was increased substantially in Afghanistan and the ISI engineered an alliance between Taliban leader Omar Mullah and the Lashker-e-Toiba [LET] and the Harkut-ul-Ansar [HUA] whose forces had been launched into J&K. These terrorist groups agreed to join forces to increase their military potential to a level required to achieve the objectives that eluded them in North-Eastern Afghanistan and J&K. The terms of agreement arrived at were that the LET and HUA would leave sufficient forces to keep Pakistan's proxy war in J&K simmering and re-deploy the bulk of their Pak trained and equipped resources to Afghanistan. Once the combined forces wrapped up Afghanistan then all three forces would launch a concerted Jihad to wrest J&K from India using battle-hardened mercenaries trained on the Afghan battlefront.
The security concerns of India that were in strategic consonance with those of Ahmed Shah Masood and his Northern Alliance were sharpened by this new strategy orchestrated by the ISI. Accordingly it increased its material and political support of the Northern Alliance and made commensurate increments in its fight against the LET and HUA in the subcontinent.
The Afghanistan situation has undergone radical changes in and after September 9/11. The Taliban Government has been removed from the helm of affairs by the American onslaught though its forces have melted away into the mountains and neighbouring Pakistan where, along with its Arabic partner Al Quaida they are regrouping to wage a guerilla war of attrition against the American led Coalition in the War Against Terrorism.
Pakistan was forced to stop any overt assistance to the Taliban and the Al Quaida and withdraw the support it provided earlier. However, its actions have been suspect. Its Army did not stop fighting alongside the Taliban forces until it was evacuated by air in early December 2001 - three months after the US had launched its war against the Taliban and Al Quaida. Al Quaida forces in the Jalalabad and Tora Bora area were allowed to exfiltrate into the Norther mountains of Pakistan where they are regrouping and being refitted for forays into North Eastern Afghanistan - a common every day occurrence that is reported by the Pentagon. Even more destabilizing is the emergence of fundamentalist controlled provincial governments in Balochistan and the NWFP that have refused US forces the right to carry out military operations against terrorist forces that withdrew from Afghanistan and have taken up residence in the region.
Pakistan's reversal provided grounds for new anti US and pro-fundamentalist forces to join the fray. The dethroned Gulbadin Hekmatyar in a statement forwarded by the Afghan Islamic Press news agency in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Dec. 26. "announced that his Hezb-i-Islami militia forces have allied with Al Quaida and the remnants of the Taliban in a jihad to expel foreigners from Afghanistan." This was reinforced by yet another message distributed among Afghan refugees in Peshawar saying, "The three forces will now jointly fight the American occupation forces in Afghanistan."
The forces of all three groups have proven their military endurance and have developed skills and concepts by which to effectively cope with the asymmetrical military capabilities of the enemy - first with the former Soviet Forces and later having undergone a year of relentless bombing by the US led coalition forces. Unlike Western trained forces these three groups are habituated to killing and death, have studied methods to minimise the kill potential of the enemy's military machine and lay down realistic objectives that meet the basic tenets of 'asymmetrical warfare' i.e. to successfully deliver a "thousand cuts" and whittle the enemy through effective use of time and space.
If these forces are able to coordinate their efforts the potency of the emerging guerilla war can make it very difficult for the military might of the US. To be noted is the fact that Hezb-i-Islami's traditional area of strength lies in and around Jalalabad on the North Eastern flank of Afghanistan. This provides the strategic bridge head for guerilla attacks at the heart of the country for Al Quaida and Taliban forces lying up in the Hunza regions of Pakistan. Conversely, with the historically demonstrated individualism of the Afghan tribes and the propensity to limit objectives to the immediate need of the hour, there is scope for the Coalition forces to break down any coherent strategy that may be resorted to.
The Achilles heel of the Taliban, Al Quaidi and Hezb-i-Islami militia lies with Afghanistan being a land locked country with no industrial infrastructure. All forms of support - material and human resources have to be brought from non-Afghan sources. If the surrounding countries are honest about their commitment to the war on terrorism the war fighting capabilities of the three groups can be quickly dried up. But therein lies the rub. The US around whom the Coalition has formed has contradicting strategic interests in Pakistan, Iran and the neighbouring Central Asian states resulting in slippages that sustain different groups fighting the Coalition.
And here the primary culprit is Pakistan who ostensibly is an active and indispensable member of the Coalition in the War Against Terrorism. According to media reports collated by Strategic Forecasting Inc. Islamabad is culpable for the formation of the alliance - In November "the Associated Press reported that Pakistan's ISI helped broker the deal that united these groups. The London Sunday Telegraph reported that as long ago as April, the ISI held a meeting in Quetta, with Hekmatyar, al Qaeda representatives and Taliban ministers. According to the Telegraph, this meeting occurred with the full knowledge of Western intelligence services, which could do nothing about it."
If at the end of 2002 the ISI is in a position to broker partnerships for the Taliban at the cost of Pakistan's so-called ally as it did before the war on terrorism then it is difficult to understand why Washington handles the enemy with kid glove. But then as as analyst at Strategic Forecasting Inc. puts it "it appears cooperation is in effect nil -- and the United States is flying blind in Afghanistan.." Delhi on the other hand cannot be so sanguine as the lone super power is deeply enmeshed in our region and the fallout of its strategic forays will of necessity wash over India's security interests.
What should be even more worrisome for the United States is the timing of the resurgence of the terrorist counter offensive and their unlimited access to materials and equipment to wage war after the back of the Taliban was supposedly broken. The question that begs an answer is, who engineered the terrorist counteroffensive to coincide with Washington's commencement of hostilities against Saddam Hussein? Especially as it has forced General Tommy Franks to re-launch a massive air offensive at a time when precious air resources were required for the Iraq war. No military commander can be comfortable in diverting forces from his primary task especially as has become apparent that the military resources were already inadequate for that task?
It is difficult to understand why the political dispensation in Washington continues to pursue policies that undermine its military strategy.

INDO-US RELATIONS FLAG IN THE SHADOW OF PAK-US ALLIANCE
It is in this context that policy makers in Delhi must view India's attempts at negotiating a relationship with the US. A relationship wherein a wide range of the national interests of both converge while it is battered by America's leaning towards Pakistan - a country that has an adversarial relationship with India and a barely concealed animosity for its ally the United States.
In a new development of the evolving Indo-US relationship we are confronted by Washington's demarche to Delhi that it will not tolerate any initiative by India to safeguard its national security interests that impinge on the security interests of its enduring ally - Pakistan. It expects India to desist from any support to its long standing ally Afghanistan This however should not surprise the authorities in Delhi. After all the US Administration:
ÿ Snubbed India when with surprising alacrity it offered bases and assistance to Washington to prosecute its war against terrorists operating out of Afghanistan in preference to tainted Pakistani support that was acquired by dire threats;
ÿ Persists in diplomatic arm twisting to force Delhi to open a dialogue with Islamabad a confirmed 'state sponsor' of terrorism against the Indian State despite President Bush's unyielding refusal to engage in a dialogue with the Afghan regime that was seen to have sponsored terrorist acts against the US;
ÿ Applied concerted American pressures to restrain India from executing punitive strikes against Islamabad sponsored terrorists and their infrastructure in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, which has resulted in over 5,000 indiscriminate killings of Indian citizens. This even while Washington had itself set a precedence by launching a devastating air offensive against Afghanistan - a State half way round the world - because it was seen to be sponsoring terrorist acts that undermined the security of the US.
All these questionable initiatives were designed to safeguard US national interests and to mitigate Pakistan's security concerns irrespective of the latter's inimical activities that encumber the regional security environment.
In laying out his National Security Strategy President Bush makes two interesting points.
First, "Defending our Nation against its enemies is the first and fundamental commitment of the Federal Government." This is a basic and universal responsibility equally applicable to all nations including India.
Second, "America will help nations that need our assistance in combating terror Š will hold to account nations that are compromised by terror, including those who harbour terrorists because allies of terror are enemies of civilization. The United States and countries cooperating with us will seek to deny them sanctuary at every turn."
However the track record suggests that when it comes to South Asia these policies are dumped overboard without any compunction whatsoever.
The December US demarche issued under the offices of the South Asian Bureau at the State Department suggests that either the Bureau has not taken cognizance of the President's directive or else they are oblivious to the ground realities that afflict the South Asian security environment. It would be prudent to draw their attention to the following:
ÿ No matter how it is camouflaged by vested interests, the world at large is cognizant of Pakistan's complicity in initiating, supporting, arming and kitting terrorism against the Indian Union and undermining United States' efforts in its war against terrorism. Under Bush's dispensation Pakistan qualifies to be held accountable as an enemy of civilization and not a state whose security interests have to be safeguarded from punitive action threatened by a State it is sponsoring terrorism against. To place Pakistan concerns before the Indian security interests are therefore reprehensible.
ÿ The imperfections of the management of the American war against terrorism in Afghanistan have resulted in a dangerous security ambiance that lends itself to rejuvenation of the Taliban and Al Quaida programmes by cadres safely ensconced in the neighbouring fundamentalist controlled tribal areas of the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan with the tacit concurrence of Islamabad. As these are the very same elements that are waging Jihad against India, any activity by it to enhance stability in Afghanistan should be more than welcome to the US Administration.
ÿ US recognition notwithstanding India has long been aware of Pakistan's design to establish a 'Pan Islamic' movement centred in Afghanistan and the ISI engineered military alliance between the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Harkut-ul-Ansar to gain control over Afghanistan and Kashmir. The implicit threat to India's well being made Delhi take initiatives in support of the Northern Alliance under Ahmed Masood long before Washington even recognized the enemy it would confront. The US Administration has no business to expect Delhi to abandon its policies to secure the State by opening Consulates in extension of security policies in the erstwhile Taliban controlled Pashtun areas of Jalalabad and Kandhar. Pakistani sensitivities that the American demarche attempts to safeguard are related to Islamabad's intent to reestablish control over those parts of Afghanistan where its surrogate Talibani Pashtun allies are located.
The US National Security strategy states "The United States has undertaken a transformation in its bilateral relationship with India based on a conviction that U.S. interests require a strong relationship with India. We are the two largest democracies, committed to political freedom protected by representative government."
Nuclear proliferation and the war on terrorism occupy prime space amongst America's national security interests - or so President Bush's National Security Strategy would lead us to believe. Coupled to these concerns are reports emanating from none other than Washington of:
ÿ An unholy nexus of Musharraf's Pakistan, Kim's North Korea and Jiang Zemin's China in unprecedented acts of nuclear weapons proliferation in violation of all recognized global norms - especially US laws. Violations carried out in the full knowledge of the US Administration for a decade now.
ÿ A safe haven being provided by Musharraf controlled Pakistan for a large number of the Taliban and Al Quaida leaders as also rank and file in their war against terrorism.
In this milieu Washington has been waging a war against terrorism with its epi-centre in South Asia supposedly against the Al Quaida and Pashtun Taliban cadres that were created, nurtured and armed by Pakistan whose Army was the primary tool of the immoral Kabul regime to subjugate the Northern Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek Tribes. Pakistan's Army continued to fight alongside the Taliban forces right through November 2001 despite the fact that these very same forces were the enemy that the American military was engaging. Having been allowed to slip away from Tora Bora these very same enemy forces are now lodged securely in Pakistan free to sally forth into Afghanistan to launch guerilla raids against the coalition forces stationed there. US forces operating out of Pakistan are under constant threat from indigenous terrorists elements operating with considerable immunity.
Added to this the US Administration has unperturbedly acquiesced to the nuclear weapons barter between Islamabad and Pyongyang that has raised nuclear proliferation to new levels. Which, besides being in blatant contravention of US laws that are assertively applied in the Indian context, signal a serious disregard of India's security interests.
India recognizes this exchange of nuclear weapons technology as "part of a barter deal", has been going on since the early 1990's in which North Korea supplied missile technology boosted Islamabad's potential to initiate nuclear strikes against the length and breadth of India. Even more worrisome are the signs of possible collaboration between Pakistan's nuclear community and the Al Quaida and other terrorist groups in the debilitating situation where Islamabad is the "epicentre of international terrorism."

Secretary of State Colin Powell would like us to believe that these occurrences are only of historic significance and that as long as Musharraf gives his word that Pakistan commits itself not to indulge in this activity Washington would be able to live with it. This despite the General having given his word so often without even the slightest intent of honouring his commitments. In contrast an American intelligence official on being interviewed by Seymour Hersh opines that Pakistan's behaviour is the "worst nightmare" as it has broken through the technological barrier created by the West and become the first Third World country to become an instrument of proliferation. The official is reported to have said, "The transfer of enrichment technology by Pakistan is a direct outgrowth of the failure of the United States to deal with the Pakistani program when we could have done so. We've lost control."

CONCLUSION

The compromises that the US is making with Pakistan appear to be inconsistent with the declared US national security strategy and in breach of existing US laws. The logic - if any exists - is missed in Delhi. What however comes out loud and clear is the US Administration efforts to bolster Pakistan's security concerns at the cost of those of India.
Instead what is now evolving is a situation wherein Pakistan can get away with blatant actions such as providing nuclear technology to North Korea or to the Al Quaida, continuing support to the United States' adversary and, persisting in its strategy to sponsor international terrorism - all of which put American vital interests in jeopardy. Not only does it receive differential immunity from punitive American response but is rewarded by billions of dollars from its benefactor by way of economic and financial aid and debt write offs. This has now been extended to hitherto unimaginable horizons whereby the recently slapped sanctions by the United States under Executive Order 12938 as amended whereby amendment 1309 adds "for making a material contribution to another country's nuclear, biological or chemical weapons or delivery systems" which covers provision of enrichment technology to North Korea have been rendered null and void by a State Department clarification. The clarification by a State Department Official states the United States military sales and economic assistance to Pakistan would continue despite the recent sanctions

Under these circumstances it would be prudent for the Indian leadership to reconsider the parameters of the evolving Indo-US relationship. A relationship that should be based on a recognition of each others national interests and geopolitical priorities and a mutual readiness to act together in the international arena in areas where the two converge, thereby advancing the relationship on the basis of trust. This relationship cannot be held hostage to the proverbial hyphen that Washington injects into its dealings with India and Pakistan. India is a sovereign country that must relate to the sovereign US without the latter imposing its questionable relationship with Pakistan on the former. Especially as the so called ally of Washington is unquestionably an adversary that is undermining New Delhi's national security interests.
The playing field at the time India initiated efforts to develop its military to military relationship with the United States has undergone a fundamental change. Obviously there is much more than meets the eye that Delhi has to get to the bottom of before it proceeds further with building this bond.

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