AS THE CRISIS between India and Pakistan heads back toward boiling up again after the deception of a remission, Russia’s offer to mediate comes not a moment too soon. There is a momentum in this crisis that will not evaporate of its own accord.
For all the hope that Islamabad and Delhi can find a diplomatic way out of their differences before it is too late, it cannot be left to chance — and certainly not to the two governments. Having come this far, both have vested interests in not being seen to blink first: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee because of his quarrelsome coalition and Gen. Pervez Musharraf with his legitimacy questioned by so many Pakistanis. Beating the war drum allows both to sidestep such problems, drawing to themselves instead star status as national heroes.
What is all the more frightening is that both think they can ride this tiger, believing that the other will jump off first before the shooting match goes up in earnest. It is utter lunacy. Such daredevil politics are like an air show display where a fighter plane deliberately hurtles toward ground to amaze the public: We assume that it will pull out of its fall in time. Usually it does. But sometimes the worst happens. That is what is so alarming now, especially with both men doing their best to force the other into a humiliating climb down and thus making compromise all the more difficult to achieve — Vajpayee with his refusal to meet Musharraf whom he says still supports Kashmiri militants (the inference being that the Pakistani leader must accept international observers to prove his goodwill in future); and Musharraf with his threat to use nuclear weapons first, defying the convention that all other nuclear states have stuck to for 50 years and which has kept nuclear peace in that time, that they would only ever use them as a weapon of last resort, in reprisal for an N-attack against them.
Musharraf’s threat has done considerable damage to Pakistan’s credibility, particularly in the US on which it depends for much of its military hardware. Americans have been shocked by such militant talk — and this is not the time to shock them given that Pakistan’s strategic importance in Washington’s eyes is on the wane now that the war in Afghanistan nears its end. It has made Pakistan appear if not one of President Bush’s "rogue" states, then something not far off. There is another factor that Musharraf needs to take into account: George Bush’s new alliance with President Putin will more than counterbalance any loss of Pakistani friendship and airspace. It assures an open door in the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union to any Afghan military operations the Americans care to mount.
Moscow has a track record as a successful mediator in the subcontinent. Back in January 1966, the then Soviet Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin, succeeded in getting Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistani President Ayub Khan agree peace terms round a table in Tashkent, although not before they had gone to war over Kashmir. Today, Russia is perhaps even better placed to act the mediator. Then, it was India’s chief ally and arms provider while Pakistan was in Washington’s sphere of influence. Today, Russia is neutral. There is another factor involved. Washington, while it wants peace between India and Pakistan, cannot be seen to favor one side against the other — it has its war against terrorism to consider. Russia is not so preoccupied.
Moreover, there is still considerable residual good will toward it in Delhi. It is therefore in a good position to extract concessions from Premier Vajpayee which if urged by Washington might result a backlash across India simply because the US is now the world’s sole superpower. Getting Russia to act the mediator makes sense and presumably was endorsed at Bush and Putin’s recent meetings. Indeed, given the new relationship, there is no way that the Russian leader would have offered to mediate without first clearing it with Washington. This is a team effort, with Moscow on stage but Washington prompting from the wings.
