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Policy of national interest

Kuldip Nayar

NATIONAL interest can change a countrys policy. This is how the Pakistani President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, has defended his decision to support America. His is a brazen statement because the Taliban is a creation of Pakistan. It gave the Afghan irregular s military and economic assistance to come to power. Even the Pakistani forces fought against what is known as the Northern Alliance to confine it to only 10 per cent of Afghanistan.

In fact, making Afghanistan a fundamentalist state was Zia-ul Huqs idea. When he started extending support to the muhajideen, who were fighting the Soviets Zias aim was to push back the Russian forces which were coming down south, closer to the Pakistani border. As the Soviet withdrawal became a real possibility, Zias ambitions soared. He came to believe that he could, for the first time since 1947, have an Afghan regime genuinely friendly to Pakistan. This would, indeed, give Islamabad the strategic de pth against India, a goal the Pakistani military planners pursued. Zia also hoped that the new government in Kabul would reflect his Islamic leanings far more than any previous Afghan regime had and far more than he had been able to impose on his own cou ntry.

Gen Musharraf has adopted the same policy because he could use the Taliban to fuel terrorism in Kashmir. Jaish-e-Muhammed is one of the groups the Taliban supports. The JEM leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, was one of the terrorists swapped for the passenger s of the Indian Airlines aircraft hijacked from Kathmandu to Kandahar. Gen Musharraf has now done an about-turn fearing Washingtons wrath and expectant of the goodies it has promised. His policy is in the national interest in the sense that Islamabad cou ld not afford to be on Talibans side. It would be inviting its own destruction. And in straits that Pakistans economy is in, Washingtons largesse would be godsend. Gen Musharraf believes that the alliance with the US is away out of his difficulties, prim arily huge international debts and an empty treasury.

Zia did the same thing when Moscow attacked Afghanistan. He got millions of dollars during the Soviet operation. As Gen Musharraf said at a press conference earlier in the week, he has made sure that America and the West would not leave Pakistan in the l urch at the end of the Afghanistan operation as it did in the 1980s after the Soviet withdrawal. Gen Musharrafs belated condemnation of the JEMs attack on the Assembly building at Srinagar comes as a surprise. So, do the dismissal of the ISI head and the transfer of two lieutenant generals, particularly when they were his cronies. Probably, Gen Musharraf feared them because of their popularity among the fundamentalists. There was also Americas prodding. The FBI has dossiers on them. When the US Presiden t, Mr George W. Bush, assured the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, that the JEM would be banned, Gen Musharraf could not but have condemned it. He did so openly, at a press conference. But the organisation still operates from Pakistan and has acc ounts in Pakistani banks. JEM functionaries have not been touched and its leader, Masood Azhar, continues to address press conferences.

Internally, Gen Musharraf does not have to fear the JEM so much as some other militant outfits. They are the ones fomenting trouble in certain parts of Pakistan. And they may pose a problem to Gen Musharraf. Their protests can become uglier and wider. Bu t, then, he has no one but himself to blame. He encouraged the fundamentalists to counter the peoples aspirations to rule themselves through a civilian set-up. It is too early to say if Gen Musharraf has been able to overcome the challenge from the funda mentalists but there is no doubting his resolve to fight them. His survival is necessary because he does represent the liberal side of Islam. The price he will exact is the postponement of the general elections next year the deadline set by Pakistans Su preme Court. The war-like situation may make people believe that democracy can wait till the poison of Talibanisation has been sucked out.

However, I am a bit suspicious of the US America and the UK. Their breast-beating on terrorism does not seem to be for moral reasons. Since they wanted to punish the Taliban for harbouring Osama Bin Laden, they needed a coalition capable of fighting the thousands-of-miles-away enemy. In fact, the West is not after terrorism but the audacity of those who have challenged Washington. The External Affairs Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, worked hard to extract a condemnation of the attack on the Assembly buildin g in Srinagar from the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, and the German Chancellor. But what they have said are mere words. Not even a simple warning has been issued to the terrorists who killed 39 people. The JEM yet to be put on Americas list of banned terrorist organisations though Mr Bush promised to include it in the list 10 days ago.

Of course, the question of building a coalition to punish such organisations does not arise. The case of India is pathetic. Unlike Islamabad, which drove a hard bargain for its support, New Delhi hastened to extend all help to America the moment it saw t he carnage in New York. The US State Department is said to have admitted in private that India was the first country to offer unconditional support. Mr Jaswant Singh raised his hand, eagerly, in favour of America. All that the country got in return was M r Tony Blair telling Mr Vajpayee in New Delhi that they would think of the next step only after settling scores with Osama Bin Laden. Of course, there are two standards one for the West and the other for the rest of the world.