The Hindu Business Line : Mumbai attacks may plunge India, Pak into crisis: Stratfor

NEW YORK: The Mumbai terror attack, in which Pakistani elements are suspected to be involved, might plunge the Indo-Pak relations into “the worst crisis since 2002'' and could even draw the US into the fray, a leading private American intelligence watchd og has claimed.

It also said the Indian government would not be able to downplay its response to the high magnitude terror attack and was left with “little choice'' but to blame Pakistan.

“If the Nov 26 attacks in Mumbai were carried out by Islamist militants as it appears, the Indian government will have little choice, politically speaking, but to blame them on Pakistan. That will in turn spark a crisis between the two nuclear rivals th at will draw the US into the fray,'' Stratfor, a publisher of online geopolitical intelligence, has said.

The Indian government, it said, had two choices: “It can simply say that the perpetrators are a domestic group or blame it on an outside power.''

In the first case, “it (government) will be held accountable for a failure of enormous proportions in security and law enforcement. It will be charged with being unable to protect the public. “On the other hand, it can link the attack to an outside powe r: Pakistan. In that case it can hold a nation-state responsible for the attack, and can use the crisis atmosphere to strengthen the government's internal position by invoking nationalism,'' Stratfor said in its article 'Red Alert: Possible Geopolitical Consequences of the Mumbai Attacks'.

The report said that India would have to take “retaliatory action'' if the Pakistanis are understood to be responsible for the attack, as otherwise the Indian government's domestic credibility will plunge.

“That, in turn, will plunge India and Pakistan into the worst crisis they have had since 2002.''

“The shape of the crisis, then, will consist of demands that the Pakistanis take immediate steps to suppress Islamist radicals across the board, but particularly in Kashmir,'' Stratfor said.

“New Delhi will demand that this action be immediate and public. This demand will come parallel to US demands for the same actions, and threats by incoming US President Mr Barack Obama to force greater cooperation from Pakistan,'' it said.

If that happens, the agency said, Pakistan will find itself in a nutcracker.

On the one side, the Indians will be “threatening action -- deliberately vague but menacing -- along with the Americans.''

It said Indians and Americans will have a joint interest in forcing the Pakistani government to act decisively and immediately.

“The Indians will not be in a position to moderate their position, and the Americans will see the situation as an opportunity to extract major concessions. Thus the crisis will directly intersect US and NATO operations in Afghanistan.''

“It is not clear the degree to which the Pakistani government can control the situation. But the Indians will have no choice but to be assertive, and the United States will move along the same line,'' the think tank said - PTI

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