The terror of talks
Why India’s offer of bilateral talks with Pakistan is a really bad idea?
The Acorn is known to choose his words carefully. So when he sets out to welcome the impending Indo-Pak talks, albeit cautiously and with a big caveat in tow, one has to sit up and take notice. His only rationale for welcoming the talks is that it takes away the Pakistani excuse of an intransigent India threatening Pakistan, which Pakistan claims is not allowing it to devote all its energies towards combating the Taliban in that country.
The premise that Pakistan’s litany of excuses can be so destroyed is wrong on many counts. For one, General Kayani made it amply clear the other day by stating that “We plan on adversaries’ capabilities, not intentions”. And Indian military capabilities are not going away in a hurry, especially when India has to deal with another far more powerful threat emanating from a rather strident China. Moreover during the recent visit by Robert Gates to Pakistan, Pakistan military spokesperson briefed US journalists in no uncertain terms about the US request for commencing military operations in North Waziristan.
Six months to a year would be needed before Pakistan could stabilise existing gains and expand any operations. We are not in a position to get overstretched.[Indian Express]
Talks or no talks, it is amply clear that Pakistan army, by its own admission, is not going to start any new operations against the jehadis. Thus, it will not be much harder for Pakistan to use the an excuse even if, hey, “open-ended talks on all outstanding issues” are in progress.
While Obama administration has not generated much confidence with its handling of AfPak, Iran or China, it would still be erroneous to assume that Obama administration doesn’t realise that all this talk about an existential threat from India is a charade by the Pakistan army. Pakistani army is keen to hedge its options in case of a US pull out from the region and is thus disinclined to take on the friendly jehadis, its strategic assets— to be used in Afghanistan and against India. Perhaps, the US has no other leverage left over Pakistan army — having granted Pakistan a handsome aid package in form of the Kerry-Lugar Act — and this is the proverbial last throw of the dice, almost in desperation hoping that Pakistan would budge.
Pakistan though, if past history is any indicator to go by, is unlikely to change its course. Then this offer of talks by India is not going to make any difference whatsoever to the situation in Pakistan [except provide more fodder to gristmills of the TRP-hungry, sensationalist Indian media]. In fact, it actually ends up explicitly conveying India’s helplessness when it comes to dealing with Pakistan.
Bringing out India’s helplessness in the open leaves Indian citizens more susceptible to fresh terror attacks by the jehadis. And if, God forbid, these bilateral talks do start to make some substantial progress, it would be almost imperative for the Pakistani military-jehadi complex to launch a spectacular terror strike on Indian mainland to derail the process.
But even this dark cloud has a silver lining. When that terror attack happens, India will have a ready option available to publicly retaliate against Pakistan: call off the bilateral talks. Now how would India have retaliated if there were no bilateral talks happening and a terror attack took place. Ponder!
PS — If Indian government has made this offer of talks under US pressure, it is all the more important that the Indian commentators and political opposition convey the prevailing public opinion against such talks in no uncertain terms. This would highlight the huge political risks being taken by the government in initiating such talks. It would allow the government to extricate far more in return from the US while simultaneously providing it the leverage to call off these talks or threaten to call them off at any time. And there exists a recent precedent of such ‘planned’ opposition. Prime Minister Vajpayee had masterly done this by using the Communists when under pressure from the US to contribute troops to Iraq. Only if the current political leadership of the UPA would display such realpolitik as PM Vajpayee did.
If this is silver lining of terror attack, Are we not already in that position of withdrawal by calling off talks since 26/11..Why do we want to take a step forward only to have an option to take step back and see that as silver lining at the cost of another terror attack ? Some how this argument doesn’t make sense.
Actually by not entering into talks, we are indicating that our threshold of tolerance has reached its limit and any further attack may result in a war. I strongly feel that has been one of the reasons, why there were no attacks since 26/11 besides their internal trouble. Pakistan only wants to exploit the India threat as an excuse and self sustenance, but actually doesn’t have the stomach to face a war. That is exactly the reason why India should call Pakistan’s bluff by carefully calibrating our threat of war to the highest level to keep it in good behavior. There are always other ways than actual war to keep up this pressure.
If I connect the dots following the statements made by Robert Gates, Gilani’s reply, the Karachi plot as per the rediff story today, India’s offer and Pakistan’s reluctance for talks — is everyone afraid that the next attack is possibly imminent and that none of them (read US, Pak, India) are in a position to stop this at this stage. Am I simply reading too much between the lines.
@Balaji, Gates saying something is not a dot, or at least his statement cannot be taken at face value.
Dawn.com reports today that Pakistan Day Parade has been cancelled because of the increased threat level in Islamabad due to the war in S. Waziristan, which appears to be a dot to me.
US Pres. Obama has stated that the US army drones would take on the terrorists in S. Waziristan if the Pakistani army will not. The more such operations continue, the better it is for India, not because of “bad taliban” being destroyed, but because drones cannot differentiate between the pro-army and anti-army factions. From the perspective of those bombed, those who facilitate US drones raining bombs are the enemy, which is not a bad outcome for India.
Pakistan’s ability to inflict terror on India is not a one-sided affair. The Hindu reports remote-controlled cameras placed on balloons potentially being deployed along the coastline as a low cost way of surveilling a huge area of the coastline for low cost. So India taking security counter measures is more important to reduce the ability of not just the Pakistanis, but other troublemakers to stir up trouble in India, and I appreciate the job the HM has done so far.
The Pakistanis have usually used the India excuse for not taking on their pet terrorists in S. Waziristan, and now it does not matter any more. They have stated that they will do no more operations inside Pakistan, and the USA has stopped depending on Pakistani cooperation to select targets and get the drones to neutralize the targets.
The Drones are going to rain bombs on targets, with “acceptable collateral damage” for the USA….except that “collateral damage” has relatives that then want to make sure that the Pakistani Day Parade does not take place.
[...] second point that K Subrahmanyam notes was also pointed by this blogger earlier[here]. Let us hear it again in the words of K Subrahmanyam. Faced with these alternatives, there is a [...]
“But even this dark cloud has a silver lining. When that terror attack happens, India will have a ready option available to publicly retaliate against Pakistan: call off the bilateral talks. Now how would India have retaliated if there were no bilateral talks happening and a terror attack took place. Ponder!”
Prophetic words. In light of the Pune blasts.
Unfortunately it happened so soon.