OPED | Thursday, July 9, 2009 | Print | Close
Waging war on Taliban
Hiranmay Karlekar
Whether Pakistan wins or not, India stands to lose
New
Delhi needs to work out its response to either of the two outcomes the
Pakistani Army’s ongoing offensive against the Taliban can have —
failure or success. Failure may not manifest itself in the form of a
defeated Pakistani Army suing for peace but the current offensive
losing its steam and the Taliban regrouping and coming back to the
areas from which they have been expelled. This would in effect mean a
return to the pre-offensive situation in these where Taliban had
terrorised the population and imposed a savage, medieval order with the
Army and the Government watching passively. The possibility can hardly
be ruled out given the way in which the offensives in Swat and Buner,
which began on April 28 and May 8, 2009 respectively, have proceeded.
In both districts of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, the
military’s early claims of success and predictions of a quick rout of
the Taliban have been repeatedly belied. Clashes continue even now.
Should
the offensive fail, the jihadi elements, who have a substantial
presence in Pakistan’s Army and principal intelligence/covert
operations agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, and who
are now lying low, will begin to reassert themselves. The modernist and
professional elements spearheading the current offensive under the
leadership of the Chief of Army Staff, General Parvez Ashraf Kayani,
will be thoroughly demoralised. In such a situation, it will be a
matter of time before the Taliban take over the country and gain access
to its nuclear arsenal. For India, this will trigger a steep escalation
in Islamabad’s proxy war against it through the instrumentality of
terrorist organisations like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and the
Jaish-e-Mohammed, which remain very much intact despite being formally
banned.
The failure of the Pakistani Army’s offensive may also
be followed by direct military intervention, by way of an extension of
the war in Afghanistan, by the United States and allied countries,
against a Taliban takeover of Pakistan. For, neither the US, nor
countries like the Soviet Union, Britain, and even China, can fail to
realise that such a takeover would mean Pakistan turning into an Al
Qaeda base and the staging ground of terrorist strikes, backed by
nuclear blackmail, all over the world, and posing an immediate survival
threat to the regime in Afghanistan.
Should the Pakistani Army’s
offensive succeed, Islamabad will demand form Washington, as a reward
for services rendered against a common enemy, US pressure on India for
a settlement of the Kashmir issue in its favour. To force Washington’s
hand, it may step up sharply its unconventional war against this
country and hold up the bogey of a nuclear conflict should India react
sharply. Judging by Washington’s traditional weakness for Islamabad and
the way the Obama Administration has showered it with aid, Pakistan may
well have its way. Thus, whichever way the offensive goes, India must
prepare to face a sharp escalation of Pakistan’s unconventional war
against it and must focus on two aspects.
The first is
reinforcing the institutional and operational infrastructure to combat
terrorism. It has implemented and is in the process of implementing, a
number of important measures planned in the aftermath of the terrorist
attack on Mumbai on November 26 last year. These cover a wide range
from reinforcing coastal security, to the setting up of hubs for the
National Security Guards in cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and
Hyderabad, the creation of a National Investigation Agency and a
tightening up of anti-terrorism laws, but are essentially defensive in
nature. Terrorism can never be combated successfully without inflicting
an unbearably high cost on those perpetrating it. India has so far been
trying to do so primarily through diplomatic means, which have not
worked the way New Delhi had wished. This leaves it with unconventional
warfare, in which India must acquire deterrent capability, including
that of staging a 26/11 type of attack on a city like Karachi.
Simultaneously,
New Delhi must consider what it should do to ensure that the major war
next door, which will follow if the US and its allies intervene
militarily, does not affect its critical regional and global interests,
which includes having a friendly regime in Afghanistan and an end to
Islamabad’s continuing unconventional war against it.
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