Spin doctors of South Block are making it appear that Pakistan is doing us a great favour by extending the Most Favoured Nation treatment (MFN) to us. In doing so, they are merely proceeding with their peculiar resolve to delink terrorism from “composite dialogue” with Pakistan.

Despite the agreement between Commerce Secretaries, it remains to be seen if Pakistan will fulfil its commitments on trade liberalisation to be undertaken by November 2012, as Prime Minister Gilani has averred that no final decision has been taken on the grant of MFN to India.

As a London-based Pakistani analyst Dr Haider Shah, representing the “Rationalist Society of Pakistan” notes: “Normal, non-discriminatory trade relations are the cornerstone of the international trade system under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as MFN is the first article of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), second article of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), and the fourth article of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). This means that the prohibitive tariff of yesteryears amounts to pushing the country back into the Stone Age, as all other countries have moved ahead of the second stage and are entering the third phase of Free Trade Agreements”.

Pakistan's MFN move, and its sweet talk at the Maldives summit, should be seen in the larger context of its double-speak on terrorism and its attempt to buy time before its bluff is truly called. Its jihadi intent has by no means disappeared.

Pakistan's isolation

Opposition is mounting in the US Congress to proposals by the Obama Administration for military and economic assistance to a country labelled as a “Major non-NATO ally,” but recently characterised as nurturing a “snake in its backyard”.

Americans increasingly allude to Pakistan as an “enemy'' rather than as a “friend”. An enterprising American journalist humorously describes Pakistan as a “frenemy” of the US!

Turkey has, for decades, cultivated Pakistan, even at the expense of its relations with India. But, just on the eve of the Istanbul Summit on Afghanistan, the influential Turkish daily Hurriet , reflecting the views of its Government, warned: “Treating Afghanistan as its own backyard and waging proxy war will be to the detriment of Pakistan's own interest. Pakistan needs to change course and stop relying on its nuisance value”.

In fact, at the Maldives Summit, an infuriated President Karzai directly alluded to Pakistan support for the Taliban, asserting: “We believe we should talk to Pakistan (and not the Taliban). We cannot keep talking to suicide bombers till we have the address, telephone number and a door to knock at”.

General Kayani's reaction to accusations of supporting terrorism has been based on the adage that “offence is the best form of defence”.

Rather than hanging his head in shame after Osama bin Laden was found hidden by the military in Abbottabad, Kayani aroused public passions in Pakistan by converting the whole Abbottabad issue into one involving an American breach of Pakistan's “sovereignty”.

While the usual suspects in the American media and academia tried to bend backwards to empathise with the Pak army, and Hilary Clinton made some soothing noises, Pakistan now faces the reality that duplicity on terrorism is making it a global outcast.

Inept handling by India

Pakistan's propaganda offensive against India on terrorism has, however, left New Delhi confused and defensive, thanks to some inept handling by South Block. Pakistan succeeded in Sharm –el-Sheikh in delinking terrorism from the Composite Dialogue Process.

Our diplomats tried to be too clever by half by pretending, contrary to facts, that all that we had resumed was a dialogue and not the “composite dialogue”. The net result has been that the salience of terrorism emanating from Pakistan has been thoroughly eroded in the dialogue process. Worse still, Pakistan is now getting away with the propaganda that what happened in Mumbai is no different from the deaths caused by “Hindu terrorists” in the “Samjhauta Express”.

Pakistan now points a finger at India for allegedly failing to prosecute the perpetrators of the Samjhauta Express bombing and uses this to explain its inaction in bringing the perpetrators of 26/11 to book.

Pakistan now knows from its past experience that Indian diplomacy lacks the resilience and resolve to stand firm against terrorist outrages. Dawood Ebrahim, the perpetrator of the Mumbai bomb blasts in 1993, when over 250 innocent people lost their lives, resides in the elite Defence Housing Society in Karachi.

This attack did not prevent New Delhi bending backwards to start a “Composite Dialogue Process” where terrorism was bracketed with drug smuggling, in 1999.

Pakistan is obviously buying time by pretending to seek a better relationship with India, even while retaining its Jihadi assets to strike again when its present isolation ends and it is able to move more forces from the Durand Line to its eastern borders. An astute Indian analyst recently observed: “Pakistan's peace cheque is post-dated, and issued on a bank in dubious health”.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan.)

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