January 31, 2002
America’s India problem
Woven into India’s message to Pakistan is one for the US: make Musharraf toe the line on Kashmir, says SELIG S. HARRISON
‘‘If Pakistan is an ally of the United States of America ... good luck to the United States of America.’’ When Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh made this caustic remark to an American journalist recently, he was sending multiple messages to Washington. The most obvious one was that Pakistan remains a hotbed of Islamic extremists, despite President Pervez Musharraf’s promised crackdown, and cannot be trusted. But at a deeper level, his words also serve as a powerful reminder that Indian anger over Pakistani provocations in Kashmir is directed not only at Islamabad, but also at the United States.
Behind the polite diplomatic exchanges now taking place between India and the US lies the Indian belief that America’s unconditional embrace of Musharraf since September 11 has emboldened Pakistani hawks to step up pressure in Kashmir. More broadly, US military aid to Pakistan ($7.3 billion over the past five decades) has encouraged Pakistan to twist India’s tail, and there is no sign yet that Washington is ready for a showdown with Musharraf if he fails to stop cross-border terrorism in Kashmir. If the US wants to restrain Indian hawks and help prevent another India-Pakistan war, the Bush administration should send a threefold message back to India: first, that it regards India as the focus of US interests in South Asia; second, that it will gradually phase out US military cooperation with Pakistan now that the need for it is declining; and finally, that it will make economic aid to Musharraf conditional on an end to Pakistani army support for militants infiltrating Kashmir.
Until September 11, the White House was moving toward a long-overdue reversal of Cold War policies, in which Washington either tilted toward Islamabad or, at best, treated India on a par with Pakistan — notwithstanding its superior size and its growing importance to the United States as a counterweight to China in the Asian balance of power. Since the World Trade Center and Pentagon tragedies, in the hopes of getting military and intelligence cooperation in Afghanistan, the United States has lionised Musharraf, showering him with a cornucopia of economic aid — no strings attached — that has so far included $600 million in immediate cash infusions, $2.1 billion in projected grants and credits, $1.5 billion in International Monetary Fund credits and a rescheduling of $12.2 billion in Pakistan’s debt to a US-led consortium of aid donors (including $3.75 billion owed directly to the US). This aid was possible only after sanctions imposed on Pakistan after its 1998 nuclear test were lifted in the wake of September 11. With budgetary sleight of hand, much of this economic aid can be used to subsidise military spending. More important, Pentagon statements increasingly envisage the establishment of permanent US military bases in Pakistan, closer Pakistani ties with the US Central Command and the supplying of spare parts and components for US weapons already in Pakistani hands. To balance out its growing ties with Pakistan, the US is offering to sell sophisticated defense equipment to India. Since India wants to get as much as it can while the getting is good, the regime in New Delhi is not making a public fuss, for the moment, over the US embrace of Pakistan. But the test in Indian eyes will be whether Musharraf’s crackdown on Islamic extremists extends to Kashmir, and whether it will last. The Pentagon spin that the US military role in Pakistan relates only to the ‘‘war on terrorism’’ rekindles Indian memories of earlier reassurances by President Eisenhower in 1954 that the programme of ‘‘limited’’ weapons aid to Pakistan then unfolding was solely for use against communist aggression. By 1965, the US had provided $3.8 billion in military hardware to Pakistan. This led the then Pakistani military dictator General Ayub Khan to launch cross-border raids in Kashmir that triggered a broader war, in which Pakistan relied on US planes and tanks. Just when India had begun to forgive and forget, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan prompted the US to supply Pakistan with $3.5 billion in new weapons aid. The nature of this package, with its F-16 aircraft and its heavy tanks, made clear that it was not intended for use on the mountainous Afghan border but rather to bolster Pakistan’s balance of power in open-plains warfare with India. In contrast to 1954, the US did not even pretend in 1982 that its aid could be used only against the Soviet Union. In a controversial speech on October 10, 1984, US Ambassador to Pakistan Deane Hinton said that the 1959 US mutual security treaty with Islamabad left the door open for the US to support Pakistan in a war with India. Lawrence S. Eagleburger, who was Undersecretary of State at the time, told me later that the US wanted to establish a ‘‘balance’’ between India and its smaller neighbour. New Delhi is not likely to pull back from the brink unless the US can get Musharraf to take meaningful steps toward peace. The most important immediate step would be to stop infiltration by Pakistani and Islamic militants into Kashmir. India’s Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani told a recent off-the-record meeting in Washington that the ceasefire line should be ‘‘adjusted’’ in key places where the terrain makes infiltration easy. If Musharraf means business, he would agree to negotiations on such changes. In return, India would not only have to withdraw the forward deployments ordered after the December 13 attack on Parliament but, equally important, negotiate with insurgent groups on greater autonomy for Kashmir within India. Harrison is a senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (LA Times-Washington Post)
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