First the Union home secretary, and now the national security adviser. It is not certain how Islamabad will choose to cope with the avalanche of accusations against its Army and intelligence establishment for being bound up with sources of terrorism. So long as it is the Indians saying this, Pakistan can hide. But once others in the international community begin to speak up, Islamabad will have few places to run to.
Pakistan had maintained after its diplomatic storm troopers sabotaged the recent foreign minister talks that home secretary G.K. Pillai’s observation on the eve of that engagement soured the atmosphere. Islamabad held that the home secretary should have given evidence of diplomatic tact by not stating in public that the role of the ISI in the Mumbai attacks was not peripheral but central. The home secretary had made it perfectly clear that he was basing himself on the interrogation of David Coleman Headley, the American national of Pakistan origin who had surveyed targets in Mumbai preceding the November 2008 attacks, and not offering India’s own surmises. But this made no difference to Islamabad. Evidently, their view is that any effort to link the Pakistan Army or ISI, its intelligence service, to terrorist agencies would automatically cause injury to the process of interaction.
The contretemps over the Indian home secretary’s words has not even died down and NSA Shivshankar Menon has found it necessary to warn that the Headley interrogation showed the “links” of the terror outfits “with the official establishment and with existing intelligence agencies”. He was careful not to name Pakistan, but Islamabad has decided to take umbrage anyway. Its foreign ministry spokesman called Mr Menon’s observations “baseless”. Possibly, they know intuitively where the shoe pinches. Nonetheless, the NSA’s comments on the goings-on in the home base of world jihad and terrorism have significance far beyond India — for the region and the world. Mr Menon’s words carry an echo when Afghanistan lies in the crucible and when no one can be sure that another major terror strike, post-marked Pakistan, is not in the offing against India, Europe, America, Africa, or some other place. The senior Indian official made two points that are worthy of note. He said on account of official links the terrorism issue was “a much harder phenomenon for us to deal with”. Mr Menon further noted that the nexus “would not be broken soon” and “was getting stronger”. He also said India had a much clearer picture today of the “ecosystem” that supports terrorism which “affects the entire world”. In Islamabad recently, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton informed a clutch of television editors earlier this week that the Headley interrogation had produced “revealing facts” that had been shared by Islamabad.
In the light of all that we know about the intricacy of the links of the Pakistan establishment with the infrastructure of terrorism, following Headley’s confessions to escape the noose, Islamabad was being a bit rich when it behaved shabbily with external affairs minister S.M. Krishna. Now Mr Menon’s remarks have come when the India-Pakistan interactive process is still on. Does Islamabad propose to repudiate it? Indeed, as Mr Krishna himself noted, the Headley information is now a matter of public record and cannot be brushed under the carpet. This constitutes a welcome reassurance that India does not plan to shove 26/11 under the carpet. However, following the NSA’s candid talk, can India carry on engaging Pakistan? If the military and intelligence establishment in Pakistan is intermeshed with the terrorists, is there any hope that Islamabad will seriously address India’s concern on the Mumbai attacks?