M B Naqvi

The writer is a well-known journalist and freelance columnist

mbnaqvi@cyber.net.pk

There are no easy options for President Pervez Musharraf, who should be discussing things, among them Kashmir rather importantly, with the US President George W Bush today. He will have to accept what economic package the US government has already prepared for Pakistan. Real significance attaches to the US mediatory role in Kashmir desired by Pakistan. What are the chances?

Few surprises are in store, as the US position is more or less an open book. In deference to Pakistani wishes, and in pursuance of its own responsibility, the US is trying to make India relent over de-escalating the tension on the borders by starting to thin out and eventually withdraw its troops. Pakistan will happily follow, if only India begins the process. But the Indians have dug their heels in and are demanding, as a condition, that Pakistan has to prove that it has changed its Kashmir policy by stopping what it calls cross-border terrorism or the proxy war. Who is to judge that this condition has been met? Why, India itself -- and not the US or international community.

There can be no two opinions about the priority of this de-escalation; it overrides other matters. At issue is war or peace in South Asia -- because an easily-possible war can quickly escalate into a nuclear exchange, even if it does not start as a nuclear war properly so-called, as this writer believes may now have become 'logical' in the given circumstances. Happily the fear of consequences has forced both sides to shrink back from a 'massive' pre-emptive nuclear strike. But pride and prejudice -- the driving force of realpolitik in the Sub-continent -- prevents the logic of this true military deadlock being translated into doing what is unavoidable: to deescalate, mutual withdrawals and a return to whatever degree of normalcy may be possible between such hostile neighbours -- and bilateral negotiations.

Two points need being made on this all-important issue. First is about the war itself: recent history proves that neither India nor Pakistan can go to war so long as they retain sanity, including the ability to react rationally to what the outside world says. The crucial fact is that (a) no Indian leader or general can wait for the enemy (Pakistan) to make a pre-emptive nuclear strike first and then react with an atomic riposte; (b) Pakistan, so long as sanity prevails, cannot make the initial, pre-emptive strike because it can neither cripple all the Indian capability to reply in kind nor can it contemplate with equanimity the size of the inevitable Indian reply: India can destroy all the major industrial-urban centres of Pakistan. Thus, the fear of Pakistani nuclear strike preventing a conventional war seamlessly graduates into the position where war ceases to be an option for either side.

The second point is that both countries, and their sane and peace-loving citizens, have to clearly realise and emphasise that war is not an option and have to make policies accordingly outside the government sphere. Look at what has been happening over the recent years. The political classes that have ruled New Delhi and Islamabad have been primarily -- as a first priority -- preparing for another war over Kashmir. For all Pakistani governments in recent years have proved by their actions that they will not sit idle and will continue making life difficult for India so long as it keeps the Kashmir Valley under its control. After gaining the nuclear capability in mid-1980s, it acquired a parallel arrogance of its own. The Indians, possessing as great, if not greater, capability see no reason for accommodating Pakistan. Politics of each ruling set of elites is based on the hatred of the other and both sets of them have flourished.

A third point merits consideration by Pakistani establishment which has been keen on third party mediation, mainly by the US. Mediation is done by a neutral party, if its own interests are not involved on the crucially important issue and if the other side agrees to it. The US has its interests throughout Asia; with India it is building a strategic consensus that is much wider in scope than what it might agree upon with Pakistan. Moreover on the issue of "cross-border terrorism" itself, listen to the US Secretary of State Colin Powell telling the US Congress: "(apropos the Jan 12 speech by Gen Musharraf) it sent a clear message to Pakistanis that terrorism must end if Pakistan has to enter the 21st century with expectations of progress and decent life for its people. President Musharraf showed great courage and foresight in sending such a decisive message to his country and by extension to the Islamic world at large. Now he must show equal courage in implementing his concept in Pakistan."

What was Powell driving at? Musharraf must courageously implement his anti-terrorism concept in Pakistan -- and by extension in Kashmir. If there ever was diplomatic endorsement of Indian demand of the stoppage of cross-border terrorism it was this, though it is not to be confused with the American drive to have the religious extremism extirpated from Pakistan. This last point is important for the US and is a commonality of purpose with India. Even otherwise, the post-9/11 policy U-turn on Afghanistan by President Musharraf led logically and relentlessly -- for the sake of the survival of Musharraf Presidency -- to Jan 12 policy shift. Now, the same logic unfailingly and no less rigorously leads to the stoppage of whatever insurgency or violence in Kashmir is taking place from Pakistani and Azad Kashmir territories. It is right. And this needs to be done expeditiously. The US will not formally mediate. And to the extent it is prepared to go, it is already doing so -- as an ally of India.

Let no Pakistani supporter of Jihad in Kashmir forget that the sole basis of insurgency in Kashmir was Pakistan's nuclear deterrent: impossibility for India of going to war. The post-Dec 13 crisis shows that India has actually threatened war, or at least creating a near-war situation that will arguably hurt Pakistan more than it does India, as some say. It is threatening in fact a proper war despite the risk of nuclear exchange. In other words, being sure that Pakistan dare not use its nuclear weapons for fear of a reply in kind, Indian government is ready to fight a conventional war in which it thinks it has an edge over Pakistan. Does it suit Pakistan to fight such a war? No it does not. In fact there should be no war at all; why should common people suffer for the sake of the elites' pride and prejudice.

The situation since Dec 13 attack on Indian Parliament shows that it is an unsustainable situation for both sides, certainly for Pakistan which is suffering unacceptable financial losses. Politically too it is unmanageable. At the very least, the crisis signals a new phase of Cold War, with covert subversion as the main instrument, may be beginning. It is simply too stupid: neither state can be defeated in this way while it makes common people suffer needless losses and, above all, it degrades the quality of public life and culture in both countries.

Therefore, President Musharraf will do well to accept the Kashmir part of American advice -- for want of any alternative -- just as he is likely to find that there is not much scope for enlargement in the package of economic aid. Musharraf certainly needs peace to restructure the governing processes for remaining in power for five more years after Oct 2002. And ordinary Pakistanis need peace (even simple absence of war) to rebuild their political parties with a view to creating an eventual democratic dispensation.