Posted on 05/16/2002 11:25:48 AM PDT by swarthyguy
WASHINGTON: Amid continuing concern about the deteriorating security situation in South Asia, the Bush administration is sending Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to the region to cool tensions between India and Pakistan.
The Armitage mission, expected within the next fortnight, follows the visit to the region of US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca and the tough message India has delivered to her that Pakistan has breached the threshold of India’s restraint.
US officials, while declining to confirm specific details for the Armitage visit, said that the administration intended to keep its attention focused on the India-Pak situation. It will also be the top item on the agenda in the summit meeting between President Bush and Russian leader Vladimir Putin later this month.
“We are taking this crisis very seriously. We don’t need specific intelligence about the balloons going up to see how serious this is,” US administration sources said.
The word in the South Asian diplomatic circles is that Rocca got an earful in New Delhi from an Indian leadership incensed at the American coddling of Pakistan’s military regime despite its egregious transgressions on various counts.
Rocca then called her Secretary Colin Powell to convey the angry mood in Delhi, and Powell’s message to the White House was what set up National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice's call to Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra and President Bush’s call to Prime Minister Vajpayee.
Vajpayee is said to have conveyed to the US President that as leader of a democratically elected government, he is accountable to the people and there is pressure on him to act against the repeated terrorist outrages being inflicted on India. He bluntly told Bush that India would take “appropriate action” after due deliberation.
Bush empathised with Vajpayee’s situation and promised that his administration would take further steps to lower the tension, suggesting that Washington would put more pressure on Musharraf.
White House officials, who met Indian diplomats after the telephonic exchanges, sought some more time to work on Pakistan but were told that the public mood in India had placed the government in a situation where it was running out of options and excuses not to act.
Even as Rocca flew into Islamabad, reportedly with a far tougher message for Musharraf than was originally intended, alarm bells went off in Washington as India unfurled the awesome majesty – if cumbersome slowness - of its consensual decision making process in deliberations that appeared to presage a military response.
The administration then decided to rush Armitage to the region.
Some officials were in fact surprised that Rocca was sent to the region at all in the first place to handle the crisis given her relative inexperience. But she was given all due respect and even got to meet Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, who bluntly told her to go and preach restraint to Pakistan.
Instead, Rocca irked New Delhi even more when after landing in Islamabad she praised Musharraf’s role in the war on terrorism, confirming the view in South block that the Bush administration is consistently being suckered by Islamabad and the State Department’s South Asia bureau is manned by Pakistan sympathisers.
However, US officials insist it is important to praise Musharraf in public, strenghten his position, and co-opt him in the war of terrorism while conveying all the tough messaging in private. Washington does not want to risk isolating the military ruler or having him turn his back on the US.
US officials also pointed out that Pakistan had arrested Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafeez Mohammed Saeed soon after Rocca’s meeting with Musharraf.
However, Indian officials have told the administration that New Delhi will not accept any cosmetic action and unless Pakistan acts seriously on eliminating training and infiltration of terrorists and acts on its demand to hand over fugitives, its is inviting punitive action.
“If they haven’t realised after all this time that Pakistan is playing a double game, they will never get it,” one Indian official said, pointing out that even the US media had cottoned on to the Pakistani game and was warning the administration about the lies and deceptions of the Musharraf regime.
But the Bush administration is still chary of buying into the Indian line that the Musharraf regime is directly responsible for terrorist atrocities.
Soon after his telephonic talk with Vajpayee, Bush issued a statement saying the “attack was also aimed at destroying opportunities for South Asia to build a future that is more stable, more peaceful and more prosperous," implicitly absolving any official Pakistani involvement.
"The US will not yield in its determination to work with the people of South Asia to fight terrorism and to build a better future," the statement said.
After releasing him following his original 'arrest' last year.
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