US and them

It is indeed a pleasure to see the Clinton administration, which prescribes restraint for all nations as freely as general practitioners ...

It is indeed a pleasure to see the Clinton administration, which prescribes restraint for all nations as freely as general practitioners push broad-spectrum antibiotics, take some of its own medicine. For once, the US has put world peace above its geopolitical compulsions. For once, it has not given free rein to its obsession with evil empires and caricature potentates.

Its even-handed communications with India and Pakistan have focused clearly on the issue at hand: the need for peace and bilateral talks. Its refusal to get involved in the situation may have something to do with Kosovo-induced fatigue, but is a blessing nevertheless. What the US is trying to say is that the Cold War is over and its generals are redundant. It can only be hoped that someone, somewhere in Islamabad, is listening.

But Pakistan Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz, who is supposed to bear the olive branch to New Delhi, does not seem to have got the message. Indo-Pak talks have been aground on the shoals of defining the mechanisms ofdiscussion for half a century. Aziz is going one better: he is not only concerned about how the two nations shall talk, but even what they shall talk about.

The Line of Control was agreed upon in 1972 and the critical clauses of the Simla accord, the cornerstone of Indo-Pak dialogue, are predicated on its immutability. Yet, Aziz seems to believe that its location is a matter of opinion. Given that he is a Nawaz Sharif man who sticks scrupulously to his brief, this can be taken to be the official policy of the Pakistan government. Aziz is coming for progressive talks, yet his first move is to set the clock back. At a time when mutual confidence is of the utmost importance, his attitude does not bode well for the future.

The US has finally appreciated India8217;s problem with Pakistan, two decades after our battle with Pakistan-abetted militancy began. The blinkers of the bipolar world are off, the Great Gaming days are over and now, with two nuclear powers in the subcontinent, the US is forced to look at thebigger picture and behave more responsibly. The UK will also have to fall in line.

Tony Blair will soon discover that the need for maintaining world peace is rather more compelling than the need for Mirpuri votes in London and Birmingham. But to what extent the former satellite of the US can adapt to this new scheme of things remains to be seen. The Pakistani establishment fondly remembers the gloriously unethical days of the Pressler Amendment, which empowered the US to continue giving military aid to Pakistan if the US president could confirm that it did not possess nuclear weapons, all other evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

The LoC was fixed a quarter-century ago, yet Pakistan appears to want to renegotiate it. Bodies in Pakistani uniform with Pakistan-issue weapons are being picked up, yet it insists that the war is being waged by freedom fighters8217;. Its bluff has been called before the whole world, yet it is carrying on with the two-faced diplomacy of an era that ought to have become a badmemory. The US exhibited unexpected good faith last week, but it must obviously exert far more pressure on Pakistan if its influence is to have any real effect.