WASHINGTON: The United States has been left searching for some positive strands in Pakistani military leader Pervez Musharraf’s defiant, in-your-face address, widely seen here as having further aggravated the situation in South Asia.
By maintaining that there is no infiltration across the Line of Control, Musharraf has boldly contested remarks and advice by world leaders, including President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and the Prime Ministers of Britain and Japan, that he has to check cross-border terrorism.
The audacity has startled officials and analysts here, and although the administration did offer any immediate public reaction to his speech, there is a palpable sense here that Musharraf is playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship while trying to wear a brave face for his domestic audience.
Why he chose to dispute the widely recorded and reported infiltration in the face of US, Indian, and even domestic accounts when he could have steered clear of it, is something that has baffled observers.
“He must think the US is either naïve or blind to take that position,” says Harold Gould, a South Asia scholar at the University of Virginia. “On the other hand, he has a record of compulsively lying and deceiving from the time of the Kargil incursion.”
Gould said Musharraf’s “belligerent posturing” arose from his being “either very scared or very stupid.” But it would now force the US to take a deep hard look at the region, including the historic reasons for the animosity in the region, an exercise that would not augur well for Pakistan.
Gould is working on a book tracing the roots of the communal problem in the region.
Other analysts suggested Musharraf’s posturing was understandable given the domestic pressure he was under to show that he had not lost face or buckled to Indian pressure.
“I would look more at what he is doing rather than what he is saying,” said Teresita Schaffer, a former ambassador to the region now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “His actions deserve more scrutiny than his words.”
Musharraf’s decision to challenge reports about infiltration and cross-border terrorism comes amid widespread acknowledgment even in the domestic Pakistani media about the fallacy of having pursued such a policy.
“Today, in spite of General Musharraf's soothing statements, there is little doubt that militant camps shelter under Pakistan's nuclear umbrella….Whatever Pakistanis might choose to think, the rest of the world remains incredulous of the continuing official Pakistani position that it provides ‘only diplomatic and moral support’ to the people of Kashmir,” Pervez Hoodbuoy, a respected commentator with Islamabad’s Quaid e-Azam University, wrote in The Dawn newspaper on Sunday.
Several other analysts are beginning to believe that Musharraf’s speech signals a new Pakistani approach of “nuclear terrorism,” holding a nuclear gun to India’s head to force a resolution of the Kashmir issue on its terms. Privately, Indian officials blame Washington for emboldening Pakistan with its “soft approach.”
Despite the precipitous slide in the region’s mood, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is still in schedule to travel to the region on June 4, mainly because of the absense from town of Secretary of State Powell. The two are rarely out at the same time.
But Washington is closely coordinating its policy with London, and if remarks by the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw are any indication, Musharraf can expect to get an earful from Armitage, of whom it is said that he bench-presses envoys to practice weight-lifting