As Pakistan loses war of words, what's next?

Asia Times ^ | May 31, 2002 | Ehsan Ahrari

[lyonesse]

In the information age, both India and Pakistan know only too well how effective words can be during tense times over the disputed Kashmir. Pakistan lost the propaganda war during the last round of military clashes with India in Kargil. No nation believed Islamabad's original claims that the Kashmiri Islamists had initiated the conflict, and that its forces had no role in it.

Then, it was only a matter of time before it had to withdraw its troops from there. The then premier, Nawaz Sharif, was left with no other choice, even though Pakistani forces had a tactical advantage over Indian troops at the outset of that round of conflict.

The ultimate price of that humiliating defeat was the ouster of Sharif and democracy from that country as a result of a military coup by the chief architect of the Kargil campaign, General Pervez Musharraf.

During the current crisis over Kashmir, Musharraf is at the helm of the government in Pakistan. But the distinction between the "good" and the "bad" guys is much more difficult to establish than it was during the Kargil conflict. Musharraf has boldly sided with the United States in its global war on terrorism. Then, last January, he renounced the use of Islamist forces in destabilizing the Indian-administered Kashmir. For the United States, they were significant developments. But not for India, which does not trust Musharraf, and is still seething over his reported role as the chief architect of the Kargil round of conflict.

What is still hurting the case of Pakistan, however, is the fact that the perpetrators of terrorist attacks were Islamist elements, and they came from that country. US intelligence sources have not questioned India's claims to that effect. The only point of confusion is whether the government of Pakistan was a party to it, or, worse yet, whether the rogue elements of the notorious Pakistani intelligence service - the Inter-Services Intelligence - were involved in providing logistical or technical support for those terrorists' successful penetration through Indian security lines.

If the latter is the case, then Musharraf might not be as effective in controlling Islamist forces in Pakistan as was originally expected. That possibility is a major concern to the United States, which continues to bank on Musharraf's support in its ongoing military operations in Afghanistan. President George W Bush is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but still insists that he do more to control terrorist groups. Thus, India has clearly emerged as a "victor" in the information war waged by the two South Asian neighbors, and the sympathies of the international community are with India, especially since innocent civilians and children were massacred by the terrorists in their last attack.

However, there are still two additional developments in the current round of tensions over Kashmir that are favoring Pakistan in the sense that they are restraining India's seeming edginess to strike its neighbor to the north. First, the United States has really emerged as a major restraining force in South Asia. The fledgling US-India strategic relationship has given ample leverage to the Bush administration in persuading India to hold back. However, the US government is only too aware of the limitations of that leverage. The domestic environment of India is such that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee may be compelled to take limited military actions against Pakistan, if for no other reason than to mollify the increasingly voluble hardliners' demands for "teaching Pakistan a lesson".

But the most significant unknown is whether any limited Indian actions would trigger only a limited a response from Pakistan. Somehow, the official thinking in India - and one hopes that it is not reiterated just for public consumption - is that it may be able to start a limited war and end it as such. However, given the significant disproportionality of conventional military power between the two, the chances of Pakistan's ratcheting up of that limited war are high. That is what worries the US government the most.

The second advantage in favor of Pakistan is that the United States is continuing its own war on terrorism on the Pakistan-Afghan borders. Pakistan is hoping that the uppermost issue of the security of the American troops in South Asia is placing incessant pressure on India, and the American leadership might be able to play it to the hilt in an attempt to avert a major war. No one knows how much behind-the-scenes pressure Washington may be able to apply on New Delhi to forgo military action, and for how long. The fact that the US government has publicized its plan to evacuate 1,100 troops and 63,000 US citizens from South Asia, on May 30, 2002, does not bode well for a continued postponement of a potential Indo-Pak war, however.

As the pendulum of advantage in the ongoing information war swings in favor of India, one hopes that it does not draw wrong lessons from it, and uses it as a license to strike a weaker but a nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Ehsan Ahrari is a Norfolk, Virginia, US-based

[Fish out of Water]

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