Powell said that at the time, in 2002, India and Pakistan had seemed on the verge of nuclear war, and "now the dialogue has paid off" with diplomatic relations, easy travel between the two countries and official talks to resolve differences on a range of issues. "I think that's been a success of the administration," Powell said.Needless to say, these are not the kind of criticisms that happy allies make. It also shows that Powell's Clown Show in front of the UN has had real consequences for American prestige.
Powell's comments were widely reported in India, which views itself as an independent great power. But Jaswant Singh, foreign minister at the time, told a news conference in New Delhi this week that Powell's account of arranging the call and his assertion that Pakistan and India had been on the brink of nuclear war were figments of his imagination.
"The way he has gone about claiming credit is a total concoction and a matter of imagination, the way he conjured up biological weapons in Iraq," Singh said. "I don't know whether the State Department of U.S.A., in addition to attempting to run U.S. foreign policy as best as it can, is also a telephone exchange and now is acting as a kind of elocution instructor to South Asia."
There is a great deal of resentment in India about America's historical tilt toward Pakistan. India, with its vibrant if messy secular democracy, its rapidly modernizing economy, and its generally responsible behavior in world affairs, feels slighted by a long tradition on the part of the United States of arming and coddling its enemy, currently a military dictatorship, despite some outrageous betrayals. Paradoxically, Pakistan has been rewarded for spreading nuclear technology, terrorism, Islamist radicalism, and instability around the world. And yet, what is the alternative? Isolating and ignoring Pakistan clearly backfired during the 1990s. Democratically elected Pakistani leaders have proven to be duplicitous, weak, corrupt and chronically incapable of confronting the radicals or refraining from nuclear proliferation. Musharraf, faced with a U.S. ultimatum immediately after 9/11, has been largely cooperative, has begun to purge the nefarious elements of the ISI, has worked to liberalize and expand the Pakistani economy and has succeeded in overturning years of misguided strategic thinking. Pakistan has (nervously) tethered its security to the United States instead of to the illusory pursuit of "strategic depth" in Afghanistan, where India's preferred candidate, Hamid Karzai, has thus far managed to marginalize or coopt Taliban leaders who had once been supported by Pakistan.
Could he be doing more? Should he allow opposition parties and promote democracy and civil society at the local level? Should A.Q. Khan be questioned and punished? Should he (and us) be pouring money into Pakistan's education system? Absolutely.
But it would be a mistake, in my view, to let the perfect be the enemy of the good here. Musharraf has been nearly assassinated twice now and is facing two low-level insurgencies in Balochistan and the NWFP, so he is not particularly eager to face a third rebellion over Kashmir. I think that a tougher public line on Pakistan might make India happy and might be more in line with America's pro-democracy rhetoric, but it would have to be done very carefully or it would backfire. Not to mention that we don't appear to have a backup plan in case Musharraf goes. Perhaps I'm not thinking creatively enough--I'd be interested in hearing readers' ideas about what else could be done--but I just don't see too many other options right now.
Thanks to The Acorn for the link.
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