Time to turn the heat on Pakistan

Just over a year ago, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was swept back to power, prompting expectations that he would tackle Pakistan’s security and economic crises, and improve relations with India. But, one year is an eternity in the politics of Pakistan! The US is refusing to pledge additional aid beyond what was promised earlier under the Kerry-Lugar Legislation. Even all-weather friend China has expressed disappointment that Sharif’s government has not done the requisite preparatory work for utilising the aid that Beijing had promised for the development of Pakistan’s ailing power sector. The only silver lining has been increased remittances from Pakistan’s workers in the Gulf, despite calls by Imran Khan for workers to halt such inward remittances.

Instead of acting circumspectly in such a situation, Pakistan has chosen to escalate tensions on its borders with Iran, Afghanistan and India. The tensions have arisen because of support to cross-border terrorism resulting from state agencies backing extremist Sunni groups, ranging from the Lashkar-e-taiba to the Afghan Taliban and the Jaish-e-Adl.

Tensions with Iran escalated last year, when the Jaish-e-Adl mounted cross-border ground and missile attacks in Iran, resulting in Iranian casualties. This prompted an Iranian spokesman to warn that Iranian forces would enter Pakistani territory if the latter “failed to act against terrorist groups operating on its soil”.

More or less coinciding with this, the Jaish-e-Adl kidnapped five Iranian border guards and moved them into Pakistan. Iran not only warned Pakistan of cross-border retaliation, but also brought to the notice of the UN Security Council, in writing, the repeated incursions from Pakistani soil. Ever since the pro-Saudi Nawaz Sharif, whose links with radical Sunni extremist groups is well documented, assumed power, Pakistan has moved towards rendering unstinted support to Saudi Arabia, even in the Syrian civil war. It has also unilaterally annulled the Pakistan-Iran oil pipeline project, prompting Iran to seek compensation.

While Sharif was commencing negotiations for a peace deal with the Tehriq-e-Taliban in the tribal areas of North Waziristan bordering Afghanistan, army chief General Raheel Sharif launched a massive military operation, involving over 50,000 military and paramilitary personnel, backed by artillery, tanks, helicopter gunships and fighter jets. An estimated one million Pashtun tribesmen have fled from their homes. They are now homeless and facing barriers preventing their entry to the neighbouring provinces of Punjab and Sind. Not surprisingly, ISI ‘assets’ like the Mullah Omar-led Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network have been quietly moved out from the battle zone, quite obviously into ISI safe houses.

Unrest is brewing amidst the displaced Pashtun tribals, as the army is unable to coordinate its operations with civilian relief agencies. One can expect that the displaced and homeless Pashtun tribals will, in due course, resort to terrorist violence across Pakistan.

The special treatment meted out to ISI assets like Mullah Omar and the Haqqani Network would have been carefully noted by the new Ashraf Ghani dispensation in Afghanistan, as a prelude to more serious attacks by the Afghan Taliban acting out of ISI and army protected safe havens in Pakistan. Pakistan’s western borders are not going to be areas of peace and stability in coming years. Unfortunately for both Nawaz Sharif and Raheel Sharif, the escalating tensions with Iran, the partisan stance on Saudi Arabia-Iran rivalries and the military action in North Waziristan have invited criticism within Pakistan.

The promotion and escalation of tensions with India across the Line of Control and the international border have to be seen in this context. What better way for the army to divert attention from its misadventures in the west, than to revive the ‘India bogey’ in Pakistan? Such an action would also test the resolve of the Narendra Modi dispensation in India to deal with cross-border terrorism.

Moreover, with Assembly elections due in J&K in December, the Pakistan army would strive to ensure that the credibility of these elections is questioned by ensuring a low turnout. Hurriyat leaders such as Shabir Shah and Yasin Malik had already been commissioned to stir up discontent and discredit the Indian army, during the floods. Three successive and successful Assembly elections in the State would erode the credibility of Pakistan’s propaganda.

What Pakistan had not bargained for, as it attempted to test India’s resolve from August onwards, was the robust response it received not only from the Indian army, but also from the paramilitary Border Security Force. This was accompanied by an ill-advised diplomatic effort to seek UN intervention in J&K. Both Sharif and his otherwise realistic national security advisor, Sartaj Aziz, seem to forget that the world changed dramatically after 9/11.

The western world led by the US has come to realise that Pakistan-backed terrorist groups are as much a threat to their security as to that of India.

Pakistan also seemed to ignore Modi’s unambiguous stance that dialogue and terrorism cannot go hand in hand, signalling that there would be no repetition of the diplomatic ineptness that India manifested in Sharm-el-Sheikh. Pakistan also seems to have misread the significance of the Obama-Modi Joint Declaration averring action for “dismantling of safe havens for terrorist and criminal networks, to disrupt all financial and tactical support for terrorist and criminal networks such as Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, the D-Company, and the Haqqanis”.

Pakistan’s military adventurism on three fronts across its borders with India, Afghanistan and Iran has created just the right environment to turn the heat on Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

Apart from mounting a media offensive across print, electronic and social networks, it is time for India to get world attention focused on Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and the plight of Baluchis, Shias and other minorities in that country.

In any case, there should be no question of a sustained dialogue process till Pakistan fulfils its January 2004 assurance that territory under its control will not be used for terrorism against India.

The writer is a former high commissioner to Pakistan