How about changing this regime, Bush?

At a conference overwhelmed by Iraq, I found myself puzzling often over these questions despite Colin Powell8217;s superlative presentation of the American case.

He listed the thousands of weapons capable of delivering biological and chemical poisons that had simply gone missing in Iraq and eloquently made the case that the 8216;8216;nexus between tyrants and terror8217;8217; was one of the biggest dangers of our time.

I found myself thinking instantly of our own Musharraf but Pakistan only found the smallest mention in the Secretary of State8217;s hour-long speech and when it did it was to make the point that the distrust between India and Pakistan was something America could do nothing about.

Not one itsy-bitsy sentence about Pakistan being in the clutches of a military dictator with weapons of mass destruction that had almost fallen into the hands of Al Qaeda. Remember that Pakistani nuclear scientist who Musharraf arrested in the immediate wake of September 11 for his alleged attempts to negotiate a nuclear programme with Osama bin Laden?

In his State of the Union address last week, the American President, in justifying a possible war on Iraq, pointed out the unimaginable horror of what could have happened if the 9/11 hijackers had been armed with nuclear or biological weapons.

What the Americans seem to have completely forgotten is that they nearly were and that the country responsible for this is Pakistan not Iraq.

It was in Pakistan that Osama lived and worked before he moved to Afghanistan. It was in the madrasas of Pakistan that the Taliban was bred and nurtured.

It was from Pakistan that Mohammed Atta received some of his funds and from Pakistan that the first attack on the World Trade Centre was planned. It was in Pakistan that Daniel Pearl was brutally murdered and it is in Pakistan8217;s Parliament that some of the mullahs responsible for creating Islamic terrorism currently sit.

So why is Iraq, and not Pakistan, the first country to fall to America8217;s 8216;8216;regime change8217;8217; foreign policy?

Cynics say the answer is obvious. Iraq has oil and Pakistan does not and America needs to get its hands on this oil if it wants its military strength to continue to be 15 times larger than that of any other nation in the world. America8217;s friends say that its motives are more benign.

It would like to topple evil Saddam and replace him with a government that believes in American style democracy and freedom and once this is achieved, this shining model of development and progress will inevitably be followed in the rest of the Middle East which has so far known only despots and dictatorship.

The Saudi ruling family, they say, will thereby be removed without America being directly involved in the project.

Fine. But, while all this freedom and democracy is being distributed around the Middle East so that the oil is safe where will the Islamic fundamentalists go? Which country would be for them a natural haven, a little Islamic Utopia? Where else but the subcontinent8217;s own land of the pure, a country whose sole reason for being was religion and a country, thereby, where fundamentalism of the Osama kind is inevitable. With Iraq so much in focus, Afghanistan will quietly slip off America8217;s radar screen and in all likelihood once more become the training ground for Islam8217;s new warriors.

Already we see signs of Gulbuddin Hekmetyar resurfacing after nearly ten years in oblivion. Pakistan8217;s generals have backed him in the past and there is no reason why they would not do so again just as, with the world8217;s attention diverted, they will once more be able to revive that other pillar of Pakistan8217;s foreign policy: Kashmir.

With peace finally showing signs of breaking out in Kashmir, this is the last thing India needs. In a recent television interview, Kashmir8217;s new Finance Minister, Muzaffar Beg said that if Pakistan could be kept from meddling he was certain that Kashmir could return to peace and normalcy within the next two years.

So, the consequences for India of a war on Iraq are all bad. Is there anything we can do to protect ourselves? Yes, like America we will have to start protecting ourselves against the 8216;8216;nexus of tyrants and terror8217;8217; in our neighbourhood and we need to be prepared to go it alone.

Our foreign policy in recent times has consisted mainly of trying to convince the world that it is Pakistan that is what Jaswant Singh once called the 8216;8216;epicentre of terror8217;8217;. We have clearly failed to do so and we need now to do more than just talk foolishly about 8216;8216;erasing8217;8217; Pakistan. We need the government to show us exactly what it has done on the ground to strengthen our intelligence agencies and build up special anti-terrorism security forces. There are no signs yet that it has done anything other than deploy the army to forward positions after the attack on Parliament more than a year ago.

Write to tavleensinghexpressindia.com