An AfPak chess game

The dramatic killing of Osama bin Laden and the Chicago trial of Tahawwur H. Rana and David Coleman Headley re-ignited debate on the incestuous links between the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), the Pakistan Army and the Al Qaeda, which former senior US intelligence official Bruce Riedel too explores in his timely book, Deadly Embrace.

The Pakistan Army was dumbstruck and the Gilani government in damage control while the US tightened the tourniquet. Expectedly, Pakistan remained in denial, crying breach of sovereignty. Home minister P. Chidambaram sought follow-up action on 26/11; the Prime Minister’s Office, worried about India-Pak relations, had silence precede the inanities.
Henry Kissinger likens diplomacy to chess, explaining that he who occupies most squares is generally ahead. In Afghanistan, compared to pre-2001, India is today disadvantaged. Firstly, India-Iran relations are testy. Further, despite ploughing $1.5 billion into economic and infrastructure development and now adding another $500 million, India is ensconced in Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s corner and dependent on the US for the endgame. Finally, Indian links to the Northern Alliance warlords are rusty and to the Pashtuns ephemeral. Therefore, despite the joint declaration during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Kabul visit last week, India’s role is restricted to playing Father Christmas. Security cooperation is mentioned, but its extent inversely proportional to Pakistani protests.
The broader context, too, has mutated. The Jasmine Revolution is still playing out in the Islamic world, Sunni and Shia. There is variable progress of democratic forces. In Tunisia and Egypt there were quick ousters of authoritarian rulers and institution building is underway, while in Syria, Libya and Yemen the status-quoists have dug in. In Bahrain, the Shia and Sunni fault lines constitute a proxy war between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council, led by Saudi Arabia. The issue at stake is vital. If Bin Laden’s crusade against the US was because its surrogates oppressed the Arab masses, then the success of some in achieving the same by peaceful protests undercuts the message of radical Islam. The moral is that wherever the Army has played an honest broker the transition has been orderly.
The Pakistan Army, too, is under scrutiny. The Indian view of their diabolical role in South Asia is, mercifully, now even on American lips as perhaps in Pakistani hearts. Normally a haloed institution, the Pakistani print media has roasted them. India had resumed the dialogue with Pakistan despite tardy progress in prosecuting the 26/11 perpetrators claiming there is no alternative to dialogue. It was also averred that the terrorism issue could only be pursued through the same process. Despite denying back-channel links with the Pakistan Army, it was argued that Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s Mohali visit indicated the Pakistan Army’s endorsement. Bin Laden’s ghost alters all that. Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has courageously sought a judicial probe into the Abbottabad affair while the ruling party lost a golden opportunity to begin a process of asserting civilian control over the military brass. Riedel’s book and the Chicago indictment are replete with proof of the seamless cohesion between the Pakistan Army, the Punjabi jihadi groupings like the LeT, and Al Qaeda. Following Headley’s five India visits (2006-08) and his reconnaissance for 26/11 being complete, his handler, Sajid Mir, passed him on to Ilyas Kashmiri for the Danish operation, which was Al Qaeda-sponsored. More significantly, the importance of 2005 emerges. That is when Bin Laden moved to Abbottabad, and also when Headley was approached for operation 26/11. It was also when the Taliban, regrouped under Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) tutelage, and the Pakistan Army, led by President Musharraf and his ISI chief, then Lt. Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, decided to commence their gambit to bring Afghanistan again under Afghans aligned to them.
The Pakistan Army’s endorsement of India-Pakistan talks thus was no change of heart. They were buying time for their Afghan endgame, which excluded India. In the meanwhile they could also extract military and economic aid from the US. They also leveraged US dependence on them for transit and counter-terrorism actions in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas to ratchet up production of fissile material and nuclear weapons before the US exits in 2014.
India can draw a lesson from history in how to deal with its contemporary regional dilemmas. In 1952, Stalin proposed a conditional re-unification of Germany. Winston Churchill, in his second stint as Prime Minister, endorsed immediate talks. In 1953, a newly-elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower summarily rejected engagement as, he felt, it was time for deeds, not words. Stalin’s death the same year buried that proposal. In retrospect, four decades later the West has a reunified Germany and a disbanded Soviet Union — i.e. a delayed but superior bargain.
The Abbottabad lesson for India is the same. Indian options need to be carefully re-built. Pakistani sponsors like China and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries need to be engaged and cautioned. Patience and imagination should be the guide, keeping in mind Charles de Gaulle’s words: “It is intolerable for a great state to leave its destiny up to the decisions and action of another state, however friendly it may be...”

K.C. Singh is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry