India's US-Pakistan suspicions deepen

[ze_dscherman]

NEW DELHI - Two facts emerged in the space of a few days last week that have made India deeply suspicious of Washington's intentions in the region. One, US secretary of state-designate Condoleezza Rice told senators that the administration of President George W Bush has a "contingency plan" to prevent "Islamic fundamentalists" from getting access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons if "something happened" to Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf and they succeeded in capturing power.

SNIP

Meanwhile, Indian suspicions at these intriguing developments between Pakistan and the US are continuing to deepen. What exactly is Washington's game in South Asia? What used to be muted speculation confined to living rooms in Delhi is now being articulated. To the question of why Musharraf is putting his life on line for the sake of the US in such a blatant fashion, for instance, Malhotra answers: "The obvious answer is that Musharraf expects to extract from the US a far higher price than he has received so far. What can that price be? This, dear Watson, is elementary. For a man who hopes to go down in history as the leader who achieved Pakistan's objectives in Kashmir, he needs America's powerful support for an Indo-Pakistani agreement on Kashmir that 'does justice to Pakistan'. War can never attain this result, and what has been lost on the battlefield cannot be won back at the conference table."

India has been agonizing over the real nature of US-Pakistan relations for years. After September 11, New Delhi expected Washington to come down hard on Pakistan, known to be a hub of Islamic extremism and terrorism in the region. Instead, the US came to the rescue of what was then a clearly failing state under a blatant military dictatorship. Even after facts of Pakistani intelligence's involvement in September 11 came to light, the US has been not only forgiving but supportive to an extraordinary degree. As a result, Indian strategists are now finding it difficult to counter conspiracy theorists who continue to claim that the "war on terrorism" is mere shadow-boxing and that September 11 had been organized by Islamabad with the help of al-Qaeda at US behest after the neo-conservatives ruling the US needed a pretext for fulfilling their imperialist agenda. There used to be few takers for such wild imaginings in India; but apparently things are changing. There are too many discrepancies and inconsistencies in official US claims that even the most incredible conspiratorial claims are beginning to gain credence.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GA27Df05.html

Interesting article by an Indian writer on the US/Pakistani relations.