Rice Encourages Dialogue Between India and Pakistan

Will the United States have to get their round-trip, shuttle-bus Diplomacy back on the road in order to diffuse the mounting tension between the two capital cities, Delhi and Islamabad? In theory, the answer is no, for the simple reason that this time, the Indians don’t seem in a hurry to cross swords with Pakistan. Which is perhaps not the case for the Americans but for a different reason: the issue of the war in Afghanistan, which has been going on for seven years, is highly dependent on Pakistan.

Almost a week after the attacks on Bombay which left almost 200 dead, Washington hurried to send two “heavyweights” over to Delhi and Islamabad: the secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, for the diplomatic aspect, and the head of Armed Forces, Admiral Mike Mullen, for military and strategic matters. Rice was in Delhi yesterday and will be in Islamabad today; Mullen was in the Pakistani capital yesterday. For security reasons nobody knows where he’ll be tomorrow.

Speaking from Delhi, Condoleezza Rice sent an unambiguous message to Pakistani leaders.  “Pakistan must act swiftly and with determination, and cooperate fully with complete transparency,” she announced, before meeting her Indian counterpart, Pranab Mukherjee, adding that the United States is “actively engaged in intelligence sharing” with India and Pakistan in order for the investigation to be a success.

For good measure, she warned India against “acting too hastily, which may provoke further consequences and create new problems.” In a joint declaration, Mukerjee indicated that for his part, “there was no doubt that the Bombay terrorist attacks were certainly carried out by individuals from Pakistan and under Pakistani control.” He did not, however, specify whether he meant the civil government who have been in office in Islamabad since last march, or the Pakistani military forces and intelligence services.

In Islamabad, Admiral Mike Mullen pressed Pakistan to show greater efficiency in hunting down jihadist groups, not only along the border with India but “throughout the country,” he said.

The Indians are no fools. Since 2001, when the United States made Pakistan their number one ally in the fight against terrorism, much to the displeasure of Delhi, there have been many changes. India has reinforced its ties with Washington, becoming a strategic partner of the United States. Above all, the United States has “a clearer understanding of Pakistan’s double game, in which, on one side, they pretend to fight against terrorism, whilst on the other they continue to promote it, including against U.N. forces in Afghanistan,” argues the analyst Chidanand Rajghatta of the Times of India.

Round trip diplomacy

Secondly, he says that “the United States knows full well that the war on terror is not linked to Iraq, nor even to Afghanistan, but that it leads straight to the heart of Pakistan, because that country created the Taliban and al-Qaeda and for fifteen years Pakistan has been responsible for worldwide attacks.” Rajghatta finally adds that, “the death of six Americans in the Bombay attacks was quicker to bring Washington to ask questions about Pakistan than the deaths of thousands of Indians over the course of the last decade.”

The United States shuttle-bus diplomacy saw its hour of glory in 2002. The two nuclear powers of Southern Asia were on the verge of launching a fourth war, after the attack on the Indian national parliament on December 13, 2001. Attributed to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), two Islamic groups based in Pakistan, the attack left 12 dead. The several comings and goings between Delhi and Islamabad of Richard Armitage, the then joint Secretary of State, bore fruit. He was the first to talk about a possible al-Qaeda presence in Indian Kashmir. Yesterday Condoleezza Rice made a subtle reference to this point. Whilst refusing to draw hasty conclusions, with reference to Bombay she said that “it’s clearly the kind of terrorism which Al Qaeda is involved in.”

Cryptic words which were out of sync with confirmations given by the American secret services, who seemed to be hot on the heals of Lashkar-e-Taiba. But who could justify an American response in the region, whoever the perpetrators may be? The hunt for al-Qaeda is part of the fight against terrorism as defined by Washington. Since August, American drones (airplanes without pilots) shell the tribal zones of Pakistan on a daily basis in the name of the “hot pursuit” of members of al-Qaeda.