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 ill
the law of unintended consequences dictate that the September 11
attack on the United States will lead to a nuclear war between India
and Pakistan?
Well, no.
The prospect
of nuclear conflict in south Asia arose after Muslim terrorists
attacked the Indian parliament last December 13. Pakistani-based
Kashmiri separatist groups Lashkar-i-Taiyibah and Jaish-i-Mohammad
were blamed for the attack, and some terrorists allegedly yelled,
"Long live Pakistan" before their own lives ended. There
followed several weeks of tough rhetoric, in which India threatened
to use "any and every weapon" against Pakistan, should
the need arise, and Pakistan responded with a similar threat. It's
hard to blame India for reacting so strongly — imagine our
response if a terror group hit the U.S. Congress. Yet it is unlikely
that the Pakistanis were the culprits, at least not as a matter
of policy.
The Kashmir
crisis is one of those perennial conflicts that seldom registers
on Western radar, but is deadly serious to the countries involved.
Some 35,000 people have been killed since the latest round of violence
began in 1989 — not coincidentally the same year the Soviet
Union withdrew from Afghanistan, freeing up cadres of trained Muslim
insurgents for other duties. The violence escalated when President
General Pervez Musharraf took power in 1999, and with the participation
of Taliban and al Qaeda forces (John Walker reportedly fought in
Kashmir before his capture). India responded with a stiff counter-insurgency
campaign that has been stymied by the availability of safe areas
for the rebels in Northern Kashmir and Pakistan. The December assault
also mirrors an October 1 suicide attack on the Indian state assembly
of Srinagar, which India blamed on Pakistan.
But Musharraf
has enough problems on his hands without fomenting war with India.
He risked a great deal politically aiding the antiterror coalition
in its war against al Qaeda and its Taliban protectors. Musharraf
assisted in the destruction of an Afghan regime he helped create,
and purged pro-Taliban elements of his own military and intelligence
services. He has had to suffer the installation of an interim regime
in Afghanistan that is dominated by ethnic Tajiks (traditionally
not friendly to Pakistan) which has already made strong overtures
to India. Afghan leader Hamid Karzai has referred to India as his
"second home." Sure, it might make sense for Musharraf
to take some action in Kashmir to placate the disaffected hard-liners,
but not to the point of starting a war that his weak, outnumbered
and outflanked county cannot win. The instigators were probably
renegade elements in his own regime acting in concert with fugitive
al Qaeda terrorists; Mohammad Afroz Abdur Razak, a member of the
al Qaeda network arrested in India October 2, disclosed shortly
after the attack that he along with others had planned to blow up
the Parliament House in New Delhi, as well as the British House
of Commons.
Musharraf has
begun an unprecedented crackdown on "non-indigenous" militants
operating out of Pakistan, and is making a strong diplomatic push
to negotiate an end to the crisis. At the recent South Asian Association
for Regional Cooperation Summit in Nepal, the Pakistani leader went
out of his way to shake hands (twice) with Indian Prime Minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee, and attempted to turn the summit into an Asian
peace conference, a move that India resisted. Vajpayee has kept
the rhetoric hot — not boiling, but still not accommodating.
In his speech to the parliament following the attack the Indian
leader echoed President Bush's words following September 11 —
terrorism is terrorism, and India will respond. "Terrorism
cannot be defined differently," he said. "It cannot be
accepted that terrorism has one form in one country and another
in another country. A global campaign is going on to eliminate terrorism.
Whatever happened the other day was a blatant demonstration of terrorism."
Vajpayee assumed the same mantel of legitimacy as the United States,
and basically dared the international community to claim otherwise.
Clearly India
senses an advantage in any future negotiation of the Kashmir issue.
But there are also domestic political factors that give the crisis
momentum. Crucial elections in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh
(UP) are scheduled for mid-February, pitting the Samajwadi Party
of Mulayam Singh Yadav against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) in a test of the strength of the Vajpayee government. Vajpayee's
constituency is in Lucknow, the capital of the state, and a defeat
in UP would be viewed as a sign of low confidence in his party and
his leadership. Conventional wisdom in India is that Vajpayee cannot
back too far off his tough stance vis-à-vis Pakistan without
imperiling the BJP's chances in the UP election.
Of course,
conventional wisdom in the Indian press may be no better informed
than in the American media, but the terror issue is definitely ripe
in this large Indian state. Uttar Pradesh borders on Nepal and has
been used as a haven by Maoist rebels fighting against the Nepalese
monarchy. Three alleged members of Hamas were arrested there last
week on an unknown mission. The upcoming election is also the background
to the widely reported threat to the Taj Mahal, which is located
in the city of Agra in western UP. The Lashkar-i-Taiyibah allegedly
sent an e-mail to the office of UP Chief Minister (and BJP member)
Rajnath Singh threatening various targets, including the famous
mausoleum. Lashkar spokesman Abdullah Sayyaf denied that his group
had threatened the most famous symbol of India, calling the report
a "drama being staged by Indian agencies... We cannot even
think of blowing up the Taj Mahal." Presumably their business
is filling tombs, not destroying them. But by giving the threat
a high profile Singh dramatized the terror issue in a manner consistent
with the BJP election strategy.
India has rejected
formal and informal offers of mediation from countries ranging from
the United States to Libya, preferring to settle the matter through
bilateral action. Indian officials have reacted strongly to any
suggestion that their outrage over the attacks is misplaced. Information
Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan, responding to British Prime
Minister Tony Blair's peace overtures during a recent visit, declared,
"We are told that you have come here to cool us down. India
has been cool from 50 years and we are still cool." Okay man,
you're still cool, we're hip to that, everyone says you are, just
don't freak out on us.
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