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Mumbai attacks: anatomy of a failed strategy

Our post-Mumbai strategy has lacked purposefulness and coherence. We have been overly cautious in our reaction to the Mumbai carnage, as if the overriding concern was to somehow salvage the policy of engagement with Pakistan pursued in recent years. We were defensive in accusing “elements in Pakistan,” and not the state agencies, of the outrage, despite the common sense view that such a highly organised, skilful commando-style operation could not have been mou nted without institutional connivance and notwithstanding the earlier evidence of the involvement of the Inter-Services Intelligence in blasting our Kabul Embassy. Subsequently, the Prime Minister chose to mention the involvement of “official agencies.”

We invited the ISI chief to India believing, presumably, that Pakistan would assist us in unravelling the Mumbai massacre, identifying, prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators and accomplices at the Pakistan end, with accompanying steps to eliminate the involved extremist groups; in sum, that Pakistan would reverse its entrenched policy of promoting terrorism against India by officially sponsored non-state actors. How we could believe this when the joint Anti-Terrorism Mechanism proved totally unproductive is perplexing. And now we are publicly holding the ISI culpable for Mumbai.

The invitation to the ISI chief also suggested that we either believed that the civilian government was in sufficient control or that it and the military were largely of one mind on non-state actors targeting India. That both were unfounded assumptions is implicit in the question we now ask who really is in charge. The response of the civilian government to the Mumbai mayhem has been confused and contradictory because of internal pressures and, ultimately, it has been tutored by the military. The recent democratic gains made by Pakistan, the vitality shown by sections of its civil society and the relative political retreat of the armed forces have buckled under the stress caused by the Mumbai mayhem. Confronted with hard choices, the establishment has quickly reverted to standard posturing. Pakistan’s denials of any complicity by its nationals, its defiance in the face of Indian allegations, its belligerence to the point of creating a war hysteria, its repeated demands for evidence and proposals for joint investigation constitute well-rehearsed tactics of fending off external pressure.

Having voluntarily limited our options in responding to Mumbai, we became vulnerable to manipulation by Pakistan. We have been obliged to participate in the charade of presenting evidence, as if Pakistan’s “legitimate” doubts about the involvement of its nationals had to be removed, and that as a rule-of-law country with an independent judicial system, Pakistan had the intention and will to act seriously on the evidence proffered — a potential British Foreign Secretary David Miliband wants tested. Demanding evidence and then doing somersaults over Ajmal Amir Iman’s identity, promising time-bound completion of investigations and sharing results and then delaying progress, rejecting evidence handed over as “information,” leaking out news that the Mumbai attacks were planned outside Pakistan and then backtracking, thereafter seeking to implicate Bangladesh in the hope of creating tensions between India and the newly-elected government there, and falsely announcing that Pakistan’s preliminary response had been communicated have not only bared the Pakistani masquerade but also made us party to the trivialisation of the Mumbai aftermath. We now affirm helplessly that we have no option but to patiently wait for Pakistan to perform.

Victim India has been reduced to petitioning for justice from guilty Pakistan. Even if Pakistan’s civilian government did not direct the Mumbai attack, the manner in which it has resisted admission of any culpability of its nationals, shielding in effect the perpetrators through obfuscation, prevarication and defiance, has made it an accessory to the crime. To believe that this government can and will deliver justice would be displaying a high degree of gullibility.

We have to distinguish between crime and terror: the political dimension of terrorism has to be dealt with. We have been manoeuvred into talking essentially about trying and bringing to justice those guilty of the Mumbai killings either in India or Pakistan. The larger issue of Pakistan taking visible and credible steps to begin the process of weeding out the terrorist groups, incarcerating their leaders, clamping down on their front organisations, choking their finances, etc., has receded into the background. We have settled down to demanding the minimum from Pakistan, unmindful of the stark reality of international relations that unless the disparity in power is overwhelming between two contending parties and one side can impose its will, you will always get less than what you ask.

Our core strategy has been to gear the U.S. to deal with the Mumbai carnage as an act of international terrorism and not as an offshoot of our long-standing feud with Pakistan over Kashmir. Mr. Miliband has delivered a serious blow to this strategy, opining in writing that Kashmir is a call to arms to terrorists targeting India and lecturing the Indian leadership during his visit to settle Kashmir. This untimely attention to Kashmir just when elections have been held there successfully is in line with the Obama administration’s desire to renew U.S. diplomatic efforts to resolve Kashmir in order to reduce Pakistan’s sense of vulnerability on its eastern frontier so that it can give requisite attention to controlling its western frontier.

We calculated that bilateral restraint will strengthen our diplomatic posture in pressing the major powers to take condign action against Pakistan on our behalf. Why we could have believed that Mumbai would weigh more heavily in the balance for the U.S. than Afghanistan when dealing with Pakistan is unclear. However shocking the Mumbai assault at the human level and worrisome in terms of tactics terrorists can employ in urban situations elsewhere, U.S. pressure on Pakistan has to be subordinated to Washington’s overriding need to maximise Pakistani cooperation against the al-Qaeda and the Taliban forces out to destabilise Afghanistan.

For Barack Obama, it is exceedingly important to register success in Afghanistan, both to justify his searing criticism of George Bush’s neglect of it and to match the results of the intended “surge” there with that in Iraq under the same General Petraeus. Several statements made by Mr. Obama on the importance of stabilising Afghanistan with more robust Pakistani cooperation and the nomination of Richard Holbrooke as a Special Envoy for Afghanistan-Pakistan reflect the high political stakes involved. Mr. Holbrooke’s truncated mandate should not lull us into believing that we will be relieved of pressure. Mr. Obama’s strategy will include pressure on Pakistan leavened with sweeteners in the form of military and economic aid. Conditioning non-military aid to Pakistan, when the U.S. itself is more vulnerable and dependent, will be a complex exercise. Significantly, military aid is not being subject to Pakistani good conduct because the Pakistan army has to kept in cooperative humour. Mr. Miliband has ruled out the use of economic aid as a pressure point as that would hurt the common man in Pakistan. Without the pressure points of economic and military aid being exercised, Pakistan is not likely to change course radically, least of all towards India. Fear that the Pakistan state may collapse and the country’s nukes may fall into the hands of extremist elements will ultimately trump any real pressure on the country.

Against this background, our reliance on the U.S. to get redress for Mumbai seems to be a political cover for avoiding bilateral action for various reasons: reluctance to admit failure of past policy, risk aversion, nervousness about U.S. reaction, disinclination to start on the wrong foot with the Obama administration and electoral considerations. Lack of a bilateral response, however, has allowed others to patronise us with advice to observe restraint, avoid tensions, engage in dialogue with Pakistan, combat terrorism jointly with it as Pakistan too is a victim of terrorism, etc. The effort is to shield the Pakistani government from official culpability and keep the focus on non-state actors.

Periodic tough-sounding statements from our leaders about all options being open, etc., are for effect to cover up lack of real action. The disconnect between verbal muscle-flexing and limp action reduces our credibility further. As time passes, options not used become more difficult to use. Initiative lost cannot be easily regained, especially when other powerful actors become involved. By doing nothing we have little leverage left. Had we taken some bilateral political measures, besides threatening to blacklist companies selling advanced weaponry to Pakistan and demanding that economic assistance by international financial institutions be made conditional on Pakistan meeting concrete benchmarks in eliminating terrorist activity within its territory, etc., we would have increased our leverage with third countries. Tactically, some of these steps should have been taken before the Obama administration took over in order to retain some bargaining options. Now it is too late.

By avoiding bilateral action we have imposed no direct cost on Pakistan, besides weakening pressure on others to act meaningfully to staunch terrorism against us. With America promising substantial military and economic aid, Pakistani rulers can conclude that, as before, a judicious mix of action and inaction on terrorism directed at U.S. interests and deniable support to terrorism against India can be a paying policy. In sum, with some tactical refining, it threatens to be business as usual for all the players.

(The writer is a former Foreign Secretary.)

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