The Hindu Business Line : Bush in South Asia

As the US President moved from Afghanistan to India and then Pakistan, he raised political storm clouds. If India was obsessed with the nuclear deal, Pakistan wanted similar treatment and Afghanistan worried about the resurgence of Taliban. G. PARTHASARATHY reviews the Bush tour.

Never before has the visit of an American President to South Asia created such a political storm as the recent visit of Mr George W. Bush to Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. India remained obsessed with whether or not the "nuclear deal" would move forward. Pakistan persisted with its insistence on the Americans blessing its quest for "parity" with India. Few people had, however, noticed the profound changes emerging in the American thinking on the reliability of Pakistan as a self-professed "ally" in the "war on terrorism".

By the time Mr Bush left for South Asia there was seething anger in the Pentagon about Pakistani assistance to the Taliban, which was re-emerging as a serious challenge to stability in Afghanistan. An emboldened Taliban, reinforced by Pakistani jihadis, operating out of secure hideouts in Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province, had mounted suicide attacks on American and Afghan forces. The Afghan President, Mr Hamid Karzai, visited Pakistan on February 16 and gave the President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, details of Taliban leaders residing in Pakistan and the confessions of 13 Pakistani terrorists arrested in Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, the Pakistan Government vehemently denied that any Taliban leaders were living in Pakistan.

MUSHARRAF MOVES

Washington had also evidently noted that Islamabad had tacitly encouraged the anti-West riots in Lahore during the controversy over the blasphemous cartoons published in Denmark.

Washington also appears to have realised that in his quest to continue as President beyond 2007, Gen Musharraf was evidently contemplating extension of the term of the present National Assembly to 2008 so that he can be re-elected by its members, rather than seeking re-election from a newly elected National Assembly, whose members may not be enthusiastic about his continuing as President.

Further, Ms Benazir Bhutto visited Washington and appears to have made a plausible case about why the next elections have to be made free, fair and universal if what she has called the "Mullah, Military, and Madrassa Alliance" has to be prevented from coming to power and continuing with present policies of harbouring the Taliban, while professing "enlightened moderation".

Just before he left Washington, Mr Bush remarked that Pakistan "still has some distance to travel on the road to democracy," adding that elections scheduled next year "need to be open and honest".

The suicide bomb attack that killed an American diplomat in Karachi on March 2 appears to have persuaded Mr Bush that Gen Musharraf had to be told that the Americans have other options in Pakistan. But despite its stated commitment to democracy in Pakistan, American interests today are such that the dominant role of the army in Pakistan's national life cannot be ignored.

Few people in India paid attention to the importance of the repeated praise that Mr Bush lavished on New Delhi for the economic assistance of $565 million that India was providing to Afghanistan. Mr Bush also went out of the way to praise India's assistance in the construction of a new Parliament building in Kabul.

Implicit in this was a rebuke for those attempting to destabilise the democratically elected dispensation in Kabul. New Delhi's references to continuing cross-border terrorism, therefore, received understanding and attention from the visiting Americans.

TERROR NEXUS

The Americans know of the nexus between ISI-backed groups promoting terrorism in India such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, on the one hand, and the Taliban and Al Qaeda, on the other. It is for this reason that, for the first time, Mr Bush spoke of both the US and India being victims of terrorism and specifically referred to the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on Parliament and the bomb blasts in 2005 on the eve of Diwali. The body language at the Islamabad Press Conference on March 4 was revealing. In response to a question about Gen Musharraf's assertion that Pakistan should receive the same treatment as India on nuclear energy cooperation, Mr Bush stated: "I explained that Pakistan and India are two different countries, with different needs and different histories. So as we proceed forward, our strategy will take in effect those known differences". Bluntly put, Mr Bush told his hosts that it was hardly befitting to equate India with a country that supplied uranium enrichment centrifuges and Chinese nuclear weapons designs to Libya, North Korea and, evidently, Iran.

Yet, the current euphoria in New Delhi about the agreement on nuclear separation needs to be tempered with caution and circumspection. The Draft Legislation to be submitted to the US Congress by the Bush Administration is going to face serious objections from influential American newspapers, academics and the "Ayatollahs of Non-proliferation".

While the Agreement has been welcomed by major powers such as France, Russia, the UK and Japan, and has been endorsed by the Nobel Prize winning IAEA Director-General, Dr Mohammed el-Baradei, China has voiced reservations, with its Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Mr Qin Gang, demanding that India sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and dismantle its nuclear weapons.

NUCLEAR HURDLES

A nexus between China, Pakistan and former Clinton Administration officials, to oppose the removal of sanctions against India appears set to emerge. Within the Nuclear Suppliers Group, China will attempt to undermine moves to remove sanctions against India by demanding that its partner in proliferation, Pakistan, should be treated similarly.

There is also a similar need for caution in efforts by the Bush Administration to promote democracy worldwide.

Our strategic interests in countries such as Myanmar cannot be compromised on this score. India can help those countries that request for assistance by providing expertise in democratic practices. But it should not be seen by others to be preaching democratic values and perhaps, in the process, undermining the interests of friends such as Russia, in Central Asia. The agreements reached on agriculture, biotechnology and in promoting trade and investment are welcome measures to step up bilateral cooperation as are measures envisaged to promote military ties.

A disturbing feature of Indo-American relations in recent days has been the inclination of some political parties to give a communal orientation to foreign policy formulation, because of perceived Muslim anger at the United States.

Resorting to such politics is dangerous as there is no dearth of outsiders interested in causing a communal divide in the country.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan.)

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