No New Policy

The second visit to India in less than six months by Afghan President Hamid Karzai this week underlines the rapidly deteriorating regional security environment as well as the new imperatives for greater political co-ordination between New Delhi and Kabul. As tensions mount on their respective borders with Pakistan,India and Afghanistan will need a lot more than expressions of mutual solidarity in the coming weeks and months. They will need a joint strategy to cope with the unfolding political chaos in Pakistan,the seeming inability of its civilian leaders to build good neighbourly relations with both Afghanistan and India,and the impending regime change in Washington.

The review of the regional situation by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Karzai would have inevitably focused on their assessment of Pakistans civilian government and its president,Asif Ali Zardari. After the return of democracy to Pakistan last year,both New Delhi and Kabul had high expectations on promoting regional harmony with Islamabad. Indias hopes evaporated after the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul last July and the terror attacks on Mumbai last November. Karzai,who hosted Zardari in Kabul last week,might have had some important insights to offer on the evolving political dynamic in Islamabad. That Pakistans national security adviser,Mahmoud Durrani,was sacked when his president was travelling in Afghanistan might not have been entirely accidental. It certainly revealed the dark shadow between Zardaris declaration of positive sentiments towards India and Afghanistan and his shaky political condition at home.

Karzai,who also recently received the US Vice President-elect,Joseph Biden,would have surely had something to say on the implications of the impending change of guard in Washington. Dr Singh and Karzai have every reason to be wary of the Obama administrations attempts to craft a new policy towards the region. The two leaders must now find ways to prevent this new policy,either deliberately or inadvertently,from undermining their shared interests in the north-western parts of South Asia. Together New Delhi and Kabul must launch a major political campaign to convince Washingtons new rulers that regional peace cannot be bought by appeasing the Pakistan army. Dr Singh and Karzai must instead offer an alternative strategy that guarantees legitimate borders to Pakistan in return for dismantling the terror infrastructure on its soil,as part of a comprehensive regional security agreement in the subcontinents northwest.