Former Pakistan ambassador to London and Washington Maleeha
Lodhi has given a taste of what Richard Holbrooke can expect when
he makes his maiden visit to Islamabad next week in his new role as
President Barack Obama’s special envoy to Pakistan and
Afghanistan.

She may have owed her diplomatic career to General Pervez Musharraf,  but being an ex-official does not mean she has lost touch.

Writing in The News, the paper she used to edit, Lodhi listed an eight-point agenda for Pakistan as it braces for Holbrooke, a diplomat with a reputation for playing hardball.

Lines have to be drawn to make the United States respect Pakistani sovereignty and understand the limits of cooperation, Lodhi writes in an opinion piece titled “Back to the Future”.

Here’s the Pakistani agenda as she sees it :
1. U.S. missile attacks on Pakistani territory should end.
2. Assistance under the Biden-Luger bill should be offered
with no strings attached.
3. Give Pakistan helicopters, night vision, radar to fight a counter-insurgency, it doesn’t need conventional arms from America.
4. Give Pakistan a break in trade agreements. The all- important textile industry needs a lifeline.
5. Make India part of the equation for stabilising Kashmir, by recognising Pakistan’s security concerns on its eastern border.
6. The United States should reshape its Afghan policy to take into account Pakistan’s security concerns, otherwise no strategy will work.
7. Pakistan must also tell the United States that sending more troops to Afghanistan without a change in strategy will backfire.
8. Policies to stabilise Afghanistan should not end up destabilising Pakistan. The Taliban should be prised away from al Qaeda, and a reconciliation process with the Taliban begun.

President Asif Ali Zardari in an op-ed piece for the Washington Post also covered some of that ground, urging the new U.S. administration to boost both military and non-military aid to help Pakistan fight extremists. “Give us the tools and we will get the job done,” he wrote.

And he made clear too he expected Holbrooke to work with both Pakistan and India on the issue of Kashmir, although as special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, India was technically not part of his remit.

 ”Much as the Palestine issue remains the core obstacle to peace in the Middle East, the question of Kashmir must be addressed in some meaningful way to bring stability to the region,” Zardari said.

Reasonable expectations of a sovereign nation ? Or is the time for expectations over ?

[Pics of Richard Holbrooke and a protest in Karachi against U.S. missile strikes in the northwest]

Central Asia is much in demand these days, whether as a transit route for U.S. and NATO supplies to Afghanistan as an alternative to Pakistan or for its rich resources, including oil and gas.

So it’s worth noting that India has been hosting Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev as its guest of honour at its Republic Day celebrations while signing a bunch of trade deals in the process. According to reports in the Indian media, including in the Business Standard, the Week and the Times of India,  India is seeking supplies of uranium for its nuclear plants and access to Kazakhstan’s oil and gas and in return would be expected to support Kakazhstan’s bid for membership of the World Trade Organisation. (India’s state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) said on Saturday it had signed a deal to explore for oil and gas in Kazakhstan.)

Before anyone gets too carried away about India stealing a march in Central Asia, this Indian website adds a note of realism: “India’s strategy towards Central Asian countries has been no different than its strategy towards African nations, and can be only summarized as ‘playing catch-up with the Chinese’,” it says. “In this new “Great Game” of the century, India is consistently assuming the role of “Johnny-come-lately” to China in Central Asia.”

That said, it still struck me as an interesting signpost in the competition between Asia and the U.S-led west for resources and influence, with Central Asia likely to become increasingly important both as a source of energy and as a supply route to Afghanistan.

The significance of this competition is unlikely to be lost on Russia which, according to this article by former Indian diplomat M K Bhadrakumar ,could end up playing off the United States against China.  He writes that while Russia does not want to see the United States and NATO defeated in Afghanistan, nor does it want them to use Central Asian supply routes to Afghanistan as an excuse to win access to the region’s oil and gas. “Russian experts estimate that the proposed Caspian transit route could eventually become an energy transportation route in reverse direction, which would mean a strategic setback for Russia in the decade-long struggle for the region’s hydrocarbon reserves.” So as part of this complex balancing act, he says, it is looking for a bigger role for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation — dominated by Russia and China — in stabilising Afghanistan.

Critics of the Bush administration acknowledged that former vice-president Dick Cheney got the importance of Central Asia even as they condemned his methods. Now India is jumping in on the act.  How is the new administration of President Barack Obama going to approach Central Asia, while juggling relations with Russia, trying to turn the tide in Afghanistan and reducing U.S. dependence on Pakistan?

(Photos: President Nursultan Nazarbayev inspects guard of honour in New Delhi/B. Mathur

Young hunter with his tame golden eagle in central Kazakhstan/Shamil Zumakov)

Pakistan said two Indian Air Force planes violated Pakistani airspace on Saturday, one along the Line of Control in  Kashmir and the other near Lahore  in Pakistan proper. Pakistani officials said Pakistani jets on patrol chased the Indians away and that the Indian Air Force, upon being contacted later, told them it had happened accidentally.

  The Indian Air Force, though, has told the media that none of its planes had violated Pakistani airspace.  There has been no official response from the Indian government.

What is really going on here? Is it a case of nerves jangling, or perhaps the Pakistani establishment is  building up war hysteria against a foe they know all too well the country will unite against?
 
Or, on the flip side, the Pakistanis are right and the intrusions by the Indian jets did take place? Was New Delhi making an aggressive display, part of the “controlled escalation” that some people have talked about to force Pakistan to act for the Mumbai attacks?

[Indian Su-30 fighter jets.Reuters pic}]

These are dangerous times to be making “inadvertent” violations into each other’s territory.  You would  think if you were flying close to the Line of Control in Kashmir or near the international border in Punjab at this time of heightened tensions, you would be even more careful.

But two violations on the same day, both as some in the Pakistan press have pointed out near camps of  the Lashkar-e-Taiba and you begin to think this has to be taken seriously and not dismissed outright.

Stratfor said given the tensions between the two nuclear neighbors after the Mumbai attack, and the details of the intrusions, it is unlikely that these incidents were accidental.

Rather, it said, New Delhi was increasing pressure on Islamabad to take concrete action not just against militants, but more  importantly their sympathizers within the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment.

Pakistan has acted by banning the Jammat-ud-Dawah (JuD), a charity linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which India accuses of masterminding the Mumbai attack, and arresting its leaders. But Delhi says Islamabad has banned groups in the past, only to ease the pressure on them later, and that, it says, is now unacceptable.

 [A view of a madrasa near Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir]

So are the foes on a steady escalation path? And can you really control this from start to finish? 

Pakistan is already chafing at the U.S. raids and missile attacks on its western border, the latest one only this week. Does it now face Indian pressure on its eastern flank?

U.S. military operations crossed another threshold in Pakistan this week when a Predator ‘drone’ aircraft fired missiles into Bannu area in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), away from the seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas where it has conducted raids with impunity.

Attacking the self-governing and semi-autonomous FATA on the Afghan border, considered a haven for al Qaeda and Taliban,  is one thing. Targeting the North West Frontier Province, or settled areas as Pakistanis call it, is quite another.

This is a  province governed by the national assembly - unlike the tribal areas which are not subject to the national assembly - and therefore  represents an expansion of U.S. operating area into Pakistan proper.

Pakistanis are worrying that if the United States can attack deep inside the North West Frontier Province, then what stops them from raining down missiles on Pakistani cities in pursuit of al Qaeda, according to a report in The Hindu. They are wondering just how far will the United States go in its battle against the militants. (more…)

Kashmiris in the part controlled by India have, by all accounts, turned out in far higher numbers than expected to vote in elections to the state assembly this week.

While New Delhi sees each such vote as an implicit recognition of the legitimacy of its rule there, the Kashmiris themselves are  trying to make a distinction between voting for representatives to help improve their lives and the larger, long-running goal of freedom.

Independence is a separate issue and there isn’t a contradiction in lining up to vote for a state assembly that is under the Indian constitution an integral part of the country, a 70-year voter told our reporter.

He said he would be back on the streets shouting  slogans for “azadi” (freedom) if there are more demonstrations of the kind that shook the Valley just a few months back, sparked by a  government decision to hand over land near a shrine in the troubled region to a Hindu trust for the benefit of  pilgrims.

But the separatists had asked the people not to vote regardless and a turnout of 57 percent in Bandipora in northern Kashmir,  up from last time’s 31 percent doesn’t make them look very good.  This is a government figure and even if the real figure was  lower it was certainly far higher than the 25 percent that they were privately hoping for, said the Kolkata-based newspaper, The Telegraph.

 A BBC reporter said he could not enter a polling booth in Ajas village, so great was the rush of people coming out to vote,  braving bitter cold and the fear of violence.

So are there winds of change blowing in the Himalayan region, especially after cataclysmic change in Pakistan which has long supported the Kashmiris struggle for separation but is now battling Islamist militants in its western region for its own survival?

It is early days yet. Monday was only the first day of a staggered polling process that runs into the second month to ensure security forces can be rotated across the state . Srinagar, which is really the hotbed of the separatist sentiment in the Valley, is to vote later and that vote will be closely scrutinised. Any optimism after the first phase of polling was misplaced, the Kashmir Times warned, noting there was a large presence of security forces in Bandipora and therefore coercion or forcing people to vote which has happened in the past couldn’t be ruled out.

“It will be wishful thinking, as some official circles have claimed, that the people of Kashmir have rejected the separatists call and disapproved their stance on the disputed nature of Kashmir by turning out in large number in the election,” it said. The people joining the polls have said clearly it is only for redressal of day-day-problems and nothing to do with a solution of the Kashmir problem, it said.

Still,  ”the absolutism of the separatists - no vote till Kashmir is free of Indian rule - did not find many takers, at least in the first  phase,” said the Telegraph.

And who knows this may just be a new start, it said. If there is peace and stability, and the new administration succeeds in rebuilding trust, perhaps the appeal of separatism may lessen, the newspaper said.

We have been here before, though, including the last round in 2002 when a coalition government led by a regional group and the Congress party was installed amid high hopes. It quickly ran aground , ending in some of the biggest anti-India protests in years.

Of all the reports I have read recently about what the United States should do about Pakistan, none so forcefully puts it in the context of its relationship with India as this latest study by the Center for American Progress (see the full pdf document here).

It’s worth reading not least because the think tank is expected to play an influential role in shaping the policies of President-elect Barack Obama. “Come January, perhaps none will be more piped into the executive branch than the 5-year-old Center for American Progress,” according to politico.com.

Add to that that the fact that under the Republican administration India shook off its association with Pakistan to become a strategic partner of the United States in its own right, and the report starts looking like a radical shift in policy. Under the administration of President George W. Bush, India worked to   “de-hyphenate” its relationship with Pakistan, while building a partnership with the United States that culminated in the U.S.-India nuclear deal. From the U.S. point of view, it won an ally that could be used to contain China.  Now it looks like the hyphen is making a comeback.

The idea that India needs to be involved in a regional solution to the problems posed by Pakistan and Afghanistan has been around for a while, and Obama himself has said that the United States should try to help resolve the Kashmir dispute. But this report is remarkably forthright in spelling out why.

“Afghanistan, India and Pakistan are inextricably linked, and U.S. policy must be formulated accordingly,” it says. “Any regional approach must address Pakistan’s security concerns with India, specifically related to Kashmir and Afghanistan.”

This argument is fundamental, since it holds that the cause of instability in Afghanistan is in Pakistan, and that Pakistan in turn will never fully turn its back on Islamist militants as long as it believes it might need them to counter India. (more…)

Pakistan cropped up with uncomfortable regularity during the U.S. presidential campaign, but listening to Barack Obama and John McCain it was difficult to discern how different their approach would be in dealing with one of America’s most complicated and conflicted allies.
  

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari met leaders of both the Democrat and Republican camps just weeks after his own election in September, but unfortunately the controversy stirred by his unguarded compliment for Sarah Palin earned more comment than the substance of those meetings.

During his campaign, Obama stated his readiness to order U.S. forces to undertake operations on Pakistani territory to eliminate al Qaeda or terrorist threats if Pakistan was unprepared or unable to act.

McCain admonished Obama for saying such things out loud as it created diplomatic problems for an allied government, yet there was little to suggest that McCain would behave differently in terms of military strategy.
 
Most Pakistanis are left to conclude that whoever wins today’s election, there will be more American troops in Afghanistan, more unrest in the ethnic Pashtun belt either side of the Afghan-Pakistani border, more U.S. missile strikes, and the constant threat that U.S. ground troops will be let off the leash in Pakistani tribal lands. (more…)

A group of Pakistani kids have voted with their wallets (including Eid savings) for U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama, hoping he would resolve the conflict raging in their troubled northwest corner of the country through peaceful means.

The children in Peshawar, capital of the North-West Frontier Province which along with the Federally Administered Tribal Areas has become the central front in the battle against al Qaeda and the Taliban, had collected $261 for “Uncle Obama’s election campaign,”  The News reports.

The children, aged 10 and 13, gathered outside the Press Club in Peshawar, accompanied by their parents and teachers, holding placards highlighting the cycle of violence they were trapped in, the newspaper said.

“We hear Obama speaking in television debates and addressing public meetings about a safe and prosperous future for the American children and people. And this is what we desire for ourselves,” one of the boys said.

The idea behind the small donation to the Obama campaign, made out of pocket money and Eid gifts, was to draw the world’s attention to the dangers the children faced in the NWFP and tribal areas, they said. (more…)

In the dying days of the Bush administration, the United States military has stepped up missile strikes by remotely piloted Predator aircraft against militants in the mountains of Pakistan.

The raids have become deeper - as much as 25 miles into Pakistani territory – and more targeted like the latest one in a compound in South Waziristan where militants had gathered to mourn the victims of a previous strike two days before.

The U.S. has launched 18 Predator attacks since the beginning of August. compared with five strikes during the first seven months of 2008, the New York Times  reported . It said that the White House was relying on air strikes after a ground operation by U.S. Special Forces triggered a furious reaction from the Pakistani government.

But arguably, the drones armed with deadly missiles can cause more destruction than any ground operation. Pakistan’s The News, citing  Interior Ministry figures, says 355 people have been killed and 248 wounded in cross-border strikes, Predator and ground attacks carried out by Afghan-based American forces in Pakistan so far this year. (more…)

While much of the media attention during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Japan this week was focused on a free trade deal the two sides failed to agree on, another pact that could have even greater consequences for the region was quietly pushed through.

This was a security cooperation agreement under which India and  Japan, once on opposite sides of the Cold War, will hold military exercises, police the Indian Ocean and conduct military-to-military exchanges on fighting terrorism.

It doesn’t sound very grand, but its significance lies in the fact that pacifist Japan has such a security pact with only two other countries - the United States and Australia.

And it comes in the same month that India and the United States closed a nuclear cooperation deal that won New Delhi a place on the world’s nuclear high table, ending three decades of isolation following its first nuclear tests in 1974. (more…)