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Mumbai attack: what next?
Najan Sethi's Editorial in Pakistan's Daily Times

Reacting to criticism in India and an isolating media trend inside Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari has asked India in an interview to Financial Times on Monday not to blame Pakistan for last weeks attacks in Mumbai, saying “non-state actors could not hijack nations”. The next sentence is even more significant: “Even if the militants are linked to Lashkar-e-Tayba, who do you think we are fighting?”

Mr Zardari also pointed to a development that the media in Pakistan was ignoring: that the attack could be a tactic to divert attention from the real war going on in the Tribal Areas between the terrorists and the Pakistan army. He came very near to saying that it was in fact a plot to force the army to vacate the Tribal Areas and deploy along the Indian border because of the Indian threat to mobilise forces as they did in 2001.

The interior adviser, Mr Rehman Malik, was clearer in his diagnosis: he said in Lahore that “the Mumbai attacks were designed to force Pakistan to deploy its troops on the countrys eastern borders, thereby clearing the western borders for infiltration” into Afghanistan. Although the PPP government has praised the Pakistani media for being “balanced”, the fact is that by reacting so emotionally to the fear and loathing spread by the reckless and xenophobic Indian media, the Pakistani media has tended to isolate the government at a critical point.

The Indian government has given our High Commissioner in Delhi a formal protest note linking the Mumbai attack to Pakistan, which the latter has rejected because of lack of proof. The single terrorist caught by the Indians is said to have “confessed” that his group landed on Mumbai harbour by a boat. He has also “confessed” to training imparted to his group by the Pakistani banned terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Tayba. But “confessions” being no more credible than “confessions” in such situations, if the media war subsides — and there are signs on some channels that it is subsiding — one can get down to objective analysis.

Pakistan is going through its toughest anti-terrorist phase. The army is making inroads in the Bajaur stronghold of the Taliban who are apparently desperate to find a way to relieve the pressure on them. Realising that the people of the Tribal Areas were tending to accept state authority and assist the Army, they have offered ceasefire and even gone through the motions of a unilateral one. Although they have benefited morally from the “unanimous” parliamentary resolution asking the army to get out of the Tribal Areas, their reversals have not ceased.

The Taliban have resorted to a more intensified wave of suicide-bombing and have targeted Peshawar and areas close to Peshawar as a deterrent but with no palpable results. The Army is still effective in its operations. This is when the vectors of “higher planning” seem to have come together. Taking account of the widespread media campaign that the war against terrorism is not Pakistans war, we can logically speculate that an authority higher than the Taliban
An interesting description
may have commissioned a plot to push the Army out of the Tribal Areas on to the border with India.
Taking account of the widespread media campaign that the war against terrorism is not Pakistans war, we can logically speculate that an authority higher than the Taliban may have commissioned a plot to push the Army out of the Tribal Areas on to the border with India.
The Mumbai attackers were all suicide-bombers out of whom one has actually chickened out and has allegedly started to “sing”.

Mr Zardaris statement that the attack could have come from “non-state actors” and that his government was actually fighting against these same “actors” reveals how isolated the PPP government has become in the wake of the attack and the media war that has followed it. Retired generals, pointedly two ex-ISI chiefs, have come on TV to describe what the next war with India will look like. Tragically, what has come out is a visceral non-professional exaggeration of the bravery of Pakistani Muslims when they battle Indian Hindus.
The brilliance of Pak ISI strategic thinkers
Once this fever subsides, more cold-blooded analysis should make Pakistanis realise the real predicament they are in. If the Indians mobilise and Pakistan mobilises in response, the western border will be unprotected. It will be unprotected against two forces: the NATO forces arrayed across the Durand Line and the Taliban who cross the border and raid inside Afghanistan. The war between these two forces will intensify in the absence of our troops, and CIA drone attacks may not only extend further inside Pakistans settled areas but also might escalate to air force attacks, followed by “boots on ground”.
If the Indians mobilise and Pakistan mobilises in response, the western border will be unprotected. It will be unprotected against two forces: the NATO forces arrayed across the Durand Line and the Taliban who cross the border and raid inside Afghanistan. The war between these two forces will intensify in the absence of our troops, and CIA drone attacks may not only extend further inside Pakistans settled areas but also might escalate to air force attacks, followed by “boots on ground”.


Welcoming this kind of eventuality on the Indo-Pak border is not a wise gambit for our war mongers. Commentators who rejoice over the fact that any concentration of Indian troops on the border will hurt India economically and meet with international criticism should consider this: what if the Indians should deploy to merely provoke American attacks from Afghanistan, targeting locations where these “non-state actors” are known to be ensconced? The media should consider that its emotional response may give India the initiative to cause harm to Pakistan without actually getting into a fight.

The PPP government should not feel uncomfortable in this brief period of political isolation. It is handling the crisis in the right way and its policy of cooperation with India and coordination with a very pro-India international community is based on wisdom
Posted by: john frum 2008-12-03
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=256434