With Islamabad backtracking on its promise to crackdown on the masterminds of 26/11,Pakistan is virtually whipping up a war hysteria.While its air force planes are flying at low altitudes in most of the cities, as if, to meet an imminent threat from India,Baitullah Mehsud of (banned) Tehrik-e-Taliban has publicly declared that his suicide fighters would back the Pakistani Army in case of any military action with India,further declaring “The time had come to wage a real jihad that the Taliban had been waiting for” Pakistan’s military is now massively deployed all along the Indian borders and the Line of control. This has exposed the tacit understanding between Pakistan Army and the Taliban (and other Islamist forces) even as the two were fighting each other in the tribal FATA areas and the North West Frontier Province.
In fact Pakistan army wants a war-like conflagration to develop with India as an excuse to back out of war against Taliban and Al-Qaeda it is fighting jointly with US and NATO forces on its western borders with Afghanistan.The aim is apparently to drastically alter the ground situation so that Obama’s military plans in this region that are being planned may go awry and benefit the Islamists forces.And to shift the focus from mounting international pressure on Pakistan to crackdown on terror groups. After a month into the Mumbai attacks,international action against Pakistan has not been enough and appears to be wearing down.With a time limit to the restraint on military response in the shape of precision strikes against terrorist targets,India cannot afford to be seen as incapable of making Pakistan to bear the political costs of these terror strikes.
Pakistan’s bluff of using the nuclear option should not deter India from embarking on a bold action. Husain haqqani,Pakistan Ambassador to US in his book ‘Pakistan Between Mosque and Military’ writes that “the emphasis on Islam as an element of national policy empowered the new country’s (Pakistan) religious leaders.It also created a nexus between the “custodians of Islam” and the Country’s military establishment,civilian bureaucracy and intelligence apparatus, which saw itself as a guardian of the new state”. This nexus resulted in creating a culture of extremism and terrorism in Pakistan that is being exported out to neighbouring India and as far away as South –East Asia,US and European continents with grave consequences for humanity.It is in this context that international community should strive hard to ensure against toppling of civilian rule in this country while keeping away the meddlings of the army,ISI and the religious extremists.The nature and extent of the challenge in Pakistan has been aptly summed by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, “Pakistan has everything that gives you an international migraine.It has nuclear weapons ,it has terrorism ,extremists, corruption(and is) very poor”.Infact it is this false notion of religious extremism denying genuine economic and political aspirations of the people that saw the eastern wing of Pakistan violently breaking away from the country in the year 1971. And it was the same false notion that saw Pervez Musharraf pitted against the civil society of Pakistan and ultimately humbled and removed from presidency.
And it may be the same false notion that may witness secession of Pashtun and Baloch areas from this nation. India thinking realistically intensely desires a stable and prosperous Pakistan flourishing as its neighbour alongwith Afghanistan and other SAARC neighbours. Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements in collusion with terrorist outfits in Pakistan have deliberately struck at Mumbai targets when the US presidency is in transition.Plans are statedly afoot for arming local militias against Talibans so that they may engage Talibans alongside US and NATO forces. Besides the “War Area” against Taliban has been expanded to include tribal FATA area of Pakistan so that they can be effectively flushed out from the crevices of the rugged mountains that provide sanctuary to them.
Updated : Saturday, 28 Mar 2009, 11:20 [IST]
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