Pak out, US veering around to Indian view on Kashmir

There is a growing feeling here that left to their own devices, New Delhi and the Kashmiri separatists can resolve most of the problems between themselves. Pakistan should show enough foresight to allow this to happen.

Most recent evidence of the kind of sentiment emerging between the two sides came in the form of the regrets expressed by the Hizbul Mujahideen for the killing of Indian soldiers in Kashmir and a reciprocal expression of repentance by the army authorities for the death of militants.

Senior officials monitoring South Asia say there are encouraged by the contacts between the two sides. They regretted the breakdown of talks on the previous occasion when the ISI is said to have prevailed upon the negotiating Hizbul to put conditions making Islamabad a party to the talks.

We dont have an insight into how things broke down, but it was unfortunate, one official said. The feeling in the administration is that the separatists and the Indian government should talk now, and Pakistan could be involved at a later stage if necessary.

The evolving US view signals a gradual shift in the position of the Clinton administration, which originally opened a can of worms during its first termby publicly airing its doubts about Kashmir’s accession to India. That statement, made by the controversial then Assistant Secretary of State RobinRaphel, is seen as having emboldened Islamabad to embark on a more adventurous course to settle the Kashmir dispute in its favour, by force if needed.

The changing dynamics of the Kashmir debate follows the decline in Pakistan’s fortunes as a nation-state and the fears in Washington and otherwestern capitals of an internal collapse.

US thinkers and strategists are now projecting that Pakistan will not exist too far into the 21st century. Robert Kaplan, an influential analyst, suggested in a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly that Pakistan could split along a natural faultline on the Indus river with the areas to the west under Iranian influence and the Punjabi areas to the east reclaimingtheir Indian heritage. But Kaplan also feels that the country will not go quietly into the night. Other similar theses about the inevitable break up of Pakistan are beginning to make the rounds.

Clinton administration officials described some of the reports as apocalyptic journalism, but agreed that Pakistan is facing a grave crisis. Under the circumstances, the wisdom of Islamabad making Kashmir a central theme of its existence when its survival even without Kashmir is in such grave doubt is questionable, they said.

Some analysts have also questioned the viability of Kashmir as an independent country even if one dismisses the prospect of the Indian side of he state merging with Pakistan. The reasonable solution they are bandying around is to settle the dispute along the Line of Control (LoC) with India addressing the Kashmiri demands of autonomy while Pakistan attends to its survival.

The changing tone of the debate has not in the least fazed Pakistan’s military dispensation. Despite the country’s parlous state, Gen. Musharraf canvassed for and invested effort heavily on the Kashmir issue at his week-long stay in NewYork.

That effort has only served to further disappoint the international diplomatic community, which was hoping for a cooling of temperatures on Kashmir through a Pakistani commitment to the existing peace treatiesand abjuring violence — the two Indian conditions for resuming dialogue.

At least one former diplomat berated Musharraf in a harsh commentary on the Washington Post editorial page yesterday. “The economy of Pakistan is sinking, yet the focus of the military remains stronger than ever on Kashmir. Pakistan’s junta continues to concentrate all its resources on funding and fueling terrorism in Kashmir on the one hand, while on theother dashing domestic hopes for a return to a democratic and secular society,” former US Ambassador Robert Davis wrote.

Davis said, “Pakistani military regime is exhibiting an almost pathological determination to keep South Asia in turmoil, doing little to curb Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism breeding within its borders, while scuttling others’ steps toward peace.” He argued that Pakistan’s intended destruction of the nascent Kashmir peace process requires a firmer response from the US.

“Declaring Pakistan a terrorist state, and thus putting it on par with the terrorist groups it harbours and supports, would encourage its people to remove the military warmongers who have deprived them of sustainable development,” Davis said.

US officials say privately that declaring Pakistan a terrorist country is simply not on the cards, simply because it would dismay and undermine the more reasonable elements in that society. But indications are that more and more militant organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba will be branded if the Musharraf government does not act.

While there appears to a subtle change of heart in the Clinton administration on the eve of the Vajpayee visit, whether it will be carried over to the next administration depends on the spadework the Indians do over the next few weeks. The general feeling is that a Bush administration will be lay store on realpolitiks, going by strategic weight rather than history or sentiment or UN resolutions.

A Gore administration will follow the Clinton line. Significantly, Gore’s lunch for Vajpayee on September 15 will be at the State Department, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will presumably be present.