The moment of truth for General Musharraf

International Herald Tribune ^ | Mansoor Ijaz

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The moment of truth for General Musharraf

Mansoor Ijaz IHT
Tuesday, May 28, 2002

India and Pakistan

 

LONDON Washington has a serious problem in South Asia. Its frontline ally in the war on terror, General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani leader, looks increasingly like a lame duck dictator who is either unable or unwilling to control imported terrorists bent on generating enough chaos to spark a full-scale war between Pakistan and its nuclear rival, India, in the disputed Himalayan enclave of Kashmir.

Terrorists have now attacked India's Parliament, exploded sophisticated bombs outside Kashmir's Capitol Building in Srinigar, and massacred 35 women and children in a Hezbollah-style bus raid during the past several months. Last week, political assassinations were added to the mix when they gunned down a leading Kashmiri peace activist.

Similarly, Pakistan's hardline Islamist generals are on the march again, emboldened by America's inability to stamp out Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist franchise. Last weekend they conducted provocative nuclear-capable missile tests in a bid to rally support.

The Bush administration's strategic plan to root out extremism from South Asia is threatened with disintegration under the weight of Al Qaeda's retrenchment in the northwestern mountains of Pakistan. Al Qaeda is moving its most battle-hardened warriors into Kashmir to provoke war with India in the hope of obtaining Pakistan's nuclear weapons in the ensuing bedlam.

Musharraf's announcement that army troops will now be sent to plug holes along the Line of Control dividing Kashmir is just that - talk. Rather than fight the terrorists' scourge by intensifying U.S. special forces and intelligence cooperation in hunting down Al Qaeda and Taliban extremists in the northwest, Islamabad is using the threat of redeployment to the Line of Control as a form of diplomatic blackmail. Islamabad's message to Washington is clear: Make India back down or we won't cooperate.

Kashmir is rapidly transforming into South Asia's West Bank, an impoverished place where India's failure to implement just, democratic solutions for people it calls its own has nurtured a new generation of Pakistani-trained extremists willing to march to Al Qaeda's beat.

It is no longer a struggle for indigenous Kashmiris to determine their own political fate.

Indian military raids into Pakistani-held Kashmir to stamp out terrorist training camps and militant hideouts are now all but certain in the coming weeks. The only questions remaining are whether the Indian move will provoke Islamabad's militant generals into risking nuclear war and whether Washington has prepared a response to force Musharraf and company to back down when the time comes.

Calling Islamabad's nuclear bluff is a dangerous game. The key antagonists are mirror images of each other. Musharraf, a New Delhi-born, Urdu-speaking migrant to Pakistan, has spent a lifetime trying to persuade his Islamist army colleagues of a hawkish fealty to the Kashmiri cause. His fear of their reaction against him, rather than courage to make peace with India in spite of them, lay at the heart of the Agra summit's failure last year. Any action he takes now that is perceived as soft on Kashmir is a sure recipe for his removal from power and will only stiffen his resolve to take the Indians on, with nuclear weapons if necessary.

Lal Krishna Advani, the hawkish home minister and heir-apparent to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of India, is a Karachi-born Hindu migrant to India who has adopted an unusually belligerent policy in dealing with Kashmiri militants of late as compensation for his policy failure in the west Indian state of Gujarat. Earlier this year, Muslims were massacred by Hindus there. Advani has scuttled each of Vajpayee's serious attempts at diplomacy in Kashmir during the past two years.

With friends like these, the Bush White House needs no new enemies in South Asia. Washington has spent too much political capital since Sept. 11 in Islamabad getting behind Musharraf's ambition, rather than getting him behind a blueprint for rebuilding his country's institutions.

If the United States is to persuade India that igniting war in the Himalayas will serve no other purpose than to strengthen Al Qaeda's drive for regional chaos and, ultimately, control of Pakistan's unsecured nuclear materials, it will first have to send these clear directives to the junta in Islamabad:

Shut down terrorist training camps, as identified by U.S. intelligence in 30 days. Then, stop feigning moral support for mujahidin and jihadi groups and end all official supply lines of arms to them.

Expel pan-Arab extremists from Pakistan in 60 days. Islamabad's intelligence agencies know who these men are, where they hide and how they finance jihad.

Maintain all nuclear weapons in their disassembled form.

Pakistan's growing duplicity in the war on terror no longer deserves carrots from Washington. U.S. leadership demands candor and honesty with Musharraf about a problem that, left unchecked, could irretrievably threaten a fifth of humanity and give the terrorists a victory no one can live with.

The writer, a New York financier, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.

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From Mansoor Ijaz, the Foxnews consultant.

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indexing.

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Musharraf's announcement that army troops will now be sent to plug holes along the Line of Control dividing Kashmir is just that - talk.

[swarthyguy]

This is the very straightforward talk from Ijaz. Cetainly seems no doubt in his mind about the camps and the support from the Pakistani establishment.

[Dog Gone]

Ijaz makes a lot of good points, but he was a little too zealous with this line:

Last week, political assassinations were added to the mix when they gunned down a leading Kashmiri peace activist.

The implication is that Pakistan is responsible, but that peace activist was actually the leader of an Islamic political party, and the masked men who killed him also tossed a hand grenade into the moslem supporters at his rally. The terrorists all miraculously got away without being caught.

In all likelihood, the assassins were Hindu extremists, who had previously attacked this same politician last month.

That's nitpicking on my part, and I suppose there's a chance this was another Islamic hit, perhaps by al-Qaida, but there's an awful lot of blaming going on, and not much constructive effort to solve the problem, by Musharraf or anyone else.

[My Identity]

Kasmir is seen as a Jihad

The dilemma for Gen Musharraf is that many of his army officers [in spite of large-scale purges] are still deeply sympathetic to the militants and the Kashmir cause ... The [Pakistan] army believes in the moral justice and diplomatic necessity of the Kashmir war... Khalid Khawaja, a retired ISI officer, [spoke] in chilling tones: "We have done the worst possible thing. We have been responsible for the miseries of our brothers and sisters because we didn't believe in God but we believed in Bush and Blair." ... The fight in Kashmir [is seen] as a legitimate jihad.

Musharraf is Ignored

It is clear Musharraf's promises are not being kept. Most of the militants [previously jailed] have been released without charge, among them the heads of groups listed as terrorist organisations by Britain and the US. Pakistan has allowed militants backed by its own intelligence agency to continue their war in Kashmir even though it threatens to plunge India and Pakistan into a devastating conflict.

Terrorists Still Active

Pakistani militants are still openly raising funds and training young fighters to cross into Kashmir to fight the Indian army. The ISI's Kashmir cell issues money and directions to militant groups. "Every jihadi has links with ISI," said a military source.

Terrorists Seek War, Nukes

Al Qaeda is moving its most battle-hardened warriors into Kashmir to provoke war with India in the hope of obtaining Pakistan's nuclear weapons in the ensuing bedlam.

Paki Military may be Nuts

I told Aman that I was disturbed by the ease with which Pakistanis talk of nuclear war with India. Aman [formerly chief of Paki military intelligence in Sind Province] shook his head. "No," he said matter-of-factly. "This should happen. We should use the bomb. ... We should fire at them and take out a few of their cities - Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta," he said. "They should fire back and take Karachi and Lahore. Kill off a hundred or two hundred million people. They should fire at us and it would all be over. ... We should teach them a lesson. It would teach all of us a lesson. There is no future here...My children have no future. None of the children of Pakistan have a future. We are surrounded by nothing but war and suffering. Millions should die away."

[mikeIII]

In all likelihood, the assassins were Hindu extremists, who had previously attacked this same politician last month.

That's nitpicking on my part, ...

No. No. You go right on ahead with your usual support of Pakistan and of your role-model Musharraf.

[Dog Gone]

Listen pal, I think it's okay to try to look at both sides of an issue, especially when the US is trying to be allies of both countries. That drives you nuts, because you can't handle it. Tough.

[mikeIII]

That drives you nuts, because you can't handle it. Tough.

Wrong buddy! I find it somewhere between pathetic and amusing! I am sure you know that! :-}

[AM2000]

The implication is that Pakistan is responsible, but that peace activist was actually the leader of an Islamic political party, and the masked men who killed him also tossed a hand grenade into the moslem supporters at his rally. The terrorists all miraculously got away without being caught.

In all likelihood, the assassins were Hindu extremists, who had previously attacked this same politician last month.

You're right in pointing out that a Shiv Sena extremist had assaulted him in the recent past. If nothing, this does indicate the possibility that the assassins could have been Hindu.

However, there was plenty of motive for the hardline factions of Kashmiri separatist movement to do the same. Lone was one of the only leaders of the Hurriyat Conference who was willing to work with the Indian government in the upcoming elections. He was one of the only Hurriyat leaders who openly and publicly proclaimed that there was no place for violence in the Kashmiri separatist movement. He also, in contravention to other leaders of the Hurriyat, said that his goal was an independent and secular Kashmir. He faced serious opposition from the jihadi groups which have wet dreams of an Islamic Kashmir, in full union with an Islamic Pakistan. They had just as much, and maybe more, motive to eliminate the only serious Kashmiri Muslim leader who was mature enough to be a true leader, and not just another Arafat-style rabble rouser. Oh, and one more thing - I read in the NYT after he was assassinated that he was the only Kashmiri leader with links to the American Embassy in New Delhi. I see his assassination as a part and parcel of the current military standoff along the Indo-Pak border - a standoff which, as you so consistently point out, has been instigated by hardline Islamists.

[Dog Gone]

I think the Musharraf faction in Pakistan is the least likely culprit in the assassination, although I suppose it's possible. Lone was preaching exactly the kind of separatist movement that Musharraf claims that he endorses. By all accounts, Lone was a successful politician, and it just seems unlikely to me that Musharraf would have wanted to eliminate someone who was attracting Indian citizens to the goal Musharraf was articulating.

The reason I suspect Hindus is the previous attack, plus the fact that the attackers wore masks. They were hiding their identities and even their ethnic origin. I'm not aware of the Islamic terrorists ever doing such a thing, but I'm sitting here in Texas and don't get all the details of every attack, I'm sure.

The other thing that makes me suspicious is that the gunmen got away without a trace. In every other major Islamic attack recently that I'm aware of, the gunmen were quickly killed or captured. Where was the Indian security? Surely they had folks at a political rally for separatism this close to the election. Could the gunmen have had "permission" from Indian security forces? And what about the grenade tossed into the crowd? Fortunately, it didn't go off, but that goes way beyond a political assassination. That looks like an attack on the entire muslim population of Kashmir.

The other theory I have is that it was al-Qaida. They have everything to gain by causing a war between India and Pakistan, and it's the perfect crime from their standpoint. Pakistan thinks the Indians did it, the Indians think the Pakistanis did it, and someone who was a voice of moderation is eliminated. It definitely was an attack that was well-planned in advance.

Regardless of who did it, it seems to be a real tragedy. Lone was someone who rejected violence, and regardless of whether his political agenda was acceptable to Delhi, he was playing within the rules of democracy.

[AM2000]

Lone was someone who rejected violence, and regardless of whether his political agenda was acceptable to Delhi, he was playing within the rules of democracy.

Yeap. And it bears mentioning here (even though this isn't directly relevant to this thread) that the Kashmir problem initially erupted when it was obvious that the the Kashmiri people were going to democratically elected someone whos political agenda was unacceptable to New Delhi - New Delhi reacted by subverting the popular election and preventing the true representatives of the Kashmiri people from taking power. This is very similar to the events in East Pakistan that resulted in the independence of Bangladesh. That resulted in the eventual independence of Bangladesh as an independent nation, and hopefully one day the Kashmiris will see the same. After it's been purged of Pakistanis, that is ;-)

[gonzo]

Eventually, you guys will figure this shit out!

Musharraf, made the deal-of-a-lifetime! He will always drive a Cadillac, and he will always drink Champagne, and he will always be in charge in Pakistan, as long as we're using those forward-Air-Bases!

Pull-up a map of the World, guys! Iran is the target, and we're in place! Kandahar is ours!

Iraq will be a passing-fancy.

I think the map-of-the-world is gonna change again, soon. Stay well and vigilant..............FRegards