[ALOCHONA] Holbrooke Visit Sparks Indian Anxieties

interesting read! Raja Mohan's article (bottom) below is very instructive!

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From: S S
Sent: Feb 16, 2009 11:59 AM
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Subject: [Holbrooke Visit Sparks Indian Anxieties

[As Raja Mohan's article appended below shows, the Indian wish-list would
include, at its very top, no mention of the K-word. But not only that. An
active military role in Afghanistan, stoutly denied by the otherwise overly
friendly Bush administration. And a say in re-shaping Pakistan. And, of
course, no re-hyphenation of the two asymmetric neighbours.

But the very deployment of Richard Holbrooke to the region as the US Special
Envoy has rattled the Indian establishment. For it knows that any honest
observer would find out that evolution of democratic culture in Pakistan is
*inter alia* strongly linked to a just and satisfactory resolution of the
Kashmir issue. And deepening of democratic culture in Pakistan is the
critical link to peace and stability in the region. The incumbent democratic
regime of Pakistan is at the moment precariously pressed between the too
powerful Army, on the one hand, and radical Islamists, on the other. That's
a matter of serious concern calling for serious intervention.]



I/II.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=HomePage&id=b36cff44-e1b3-4620-99ab-4524e231e480&MatchID1=4924&TeamID1=4&TeamID2=2&MatchType1=1&SeriesID1=1244&PrimaryID=4924&Headline=US%2c+India%2c+Pakistan+face+common+terror+threat%3a+Holbrooke

*Indo-Asian News Service*
New Delhi, February 16, 2009
First Published: 15:59 IST(16/2/2009)
Last Updated: 16:55 IST(16/2/2009)
US, India, Pakistan face common terror threat: Holbrooke

US special envoy Richard Holbrooke held talks with External Affairs Minister
Pranab Mukherjee Monday and underlined that terrorism poses a "direct
threat" to India, Pakistan and the US.

"India, the US and Pakistan all have a common threat now: an enemy which
poses a direct threat to our leadership, people and capitals," Holbrooke
told reporters after talks with Mukherjee.

"I carry no messages. I just wanted to hear the views of India on a wide
range of issues," Holbrooke replied when asked about the nature of his
discussions with Mukherjee.

Holbrooke, US special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, shared
with Mukherjee his assessment of the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan,
the countries he visited before coming to India on the last leg of a
regional tour Sunday night.

The Mumbai terror attacks figured prominently in the discussions with India
pressing the US to sustain pressure on Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of
the carnage to justice, official sources said. The two sides also discussed
the volatile situation in Afghanistan and ways of combating a resurgent
Taliban.

Holbrooke's visit marks the first high-level contact between India and the
US after Barack Obama became president over three weeks ago.

Lauding US Ambassador David Mulford for his role in transforming India-US
ties, Holbrooke said he had been fascinated by India since he was a young
American growing up in New York.

The US has played a significant role in pressuring Pakistan, with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) closely tracking the Mumbai attacks
that killed 173 people, including six Americans.

Holbrooke's trip to India coincided with the disclosure in an American daily
that the CIA -- by "orchestrating back-channel intelligence exchanges"
between the two neighbours -- played a key role in Pakistan's admission that
its citizens were involved in the Mumbai terror attacks.
II.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-afpak-mandate/423956/

The Af-Pak mandate
*C Raja Mohan* Posted online: Feb 16, 2009 at 0431 hrs

**In helping the US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke succeed in his
diplomatic mission, India can help itself in containing the growing security
challenges from the north-western marches of the subcontinent. What
Washington now calls "Af-Pak", shorthand for Holbrooke's mandate on
Afghanistan and Pakistan, is quite familiar to India as the turbulent
territory between the Indus and the Hindu Kush, which for millennia has been
the principal source of India's external security threats.

New Delhi's initial wariness about the Holbrooke mission appears to have
turned into recognition of the rare strategic opportunity that it presents,
for three good reasons.

One, Holbrooke was quick to sense that including the Kashmir dispute in his
mandate would constrain his room for diplomatic manoeuvre. That Holbrooke
got Washington to see the paradox — New Delhi's exclusion from the formal
mandate is necessary to make it Washington's partner — suggests the special
envoy might be adding subtlety to his awesome reputation as a diplomatic
bulldozer.

Two, New Delhi knows that Holbrooke has been ordered by President Barack
Obama to end Washington's tribal warfare on making the Af-Pak policy. The
notorious power of his bureaucratic elbows means, Holbrooke would have a big
role in shaping the Obama administration's South Asia policy. New Delhi will
therefore find in Holbrooke a powerful and influential interlocutor during
the Obama years.

Three, Holbrooke has already demonstrated the clout to force major changes
on the ground. Few in New Delhi doubt that last week's dramatic turn-around
in Pakistan's position on the Mumbai attacks everything had to do with the
pressure that Holbrooke had begun to mount on Islamabad.

There is no doubt in New Delhi that India and the United States have shared
political interests in stabilising Afghanistan and Pakistan, preventing the
further growth of the Taliban across the Durand Line, and promoting economic
prosperity and political modernity in the trans-Indus territories.

Common interests do not necessarily lead to coordinated policies among
nations. New Delhi, then, must find ways to work with Holbrooke in the
coming months and years in expanding areas of agreement and cooperation
while minimising the inevitable tensions.

As New Delhi begins a dialogue with Holbrooke this week, there is no
under-estimating its historic significance. Never in the past six decades
have New Delhi and Washington had an honest conversation on Pakistan — a
source of enduring contention in the bilateral relations between India and
the US rather than a theatre for political and security cooperation.

As Holbrooke's first trip to the region draws the inputs for a comprehensive
restructuring of the US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the outlines
of which will be known by April, India must be unreserved in its offer to
help Holbrooke win. India's potential cooperation with the US could be
wide-ranging. It could extend, for example, strong support to President
Obama's effort to craft a new regional approach to the problems in
Afghanistan.

New Delhi should also welcome Washington's efforts to mend fences with
Moscow and begin negotiations with Tehran. The easing of US tensions with
Russia and Iran — neither would want to see the triumph of the Taliban in
Afghanistan — would generate new options for Washington and New Delhi. India
must offer money and men to build new transportation corridors into
Afghanistan, of the kind it has already developed through Iran, in order to
reduce the US dependence on the Pakistan army for supplies to its troops in
Afghanistan.

Although the Bush administration welcomed India's economic involvement, it
actively discouraged India from embarking on security cooperation with
Afghanistan by citing Pakistan's concerns. New Delhi would want to know if
Holbrooke has a different view. Short of sending troops, New Delhi can to
contribute in a variety of other ways to stabilise Afghanistan — from large-
scale training of armed forces to assistance in the creation of an Afghan
air force, from supplying non-lethal military equipment to sending
volunteers for local reconstruction in Afghan provinces. Instead of begging
its feckless European allies for small, symbolic and ineffective
contributions, the US could find in India a valuable partner to devising
credible security structures for Afghanistan.

For his part, Holbrooke would surely want to know what New Delhi could do to
make it easier for the US and the international community to pacify the
Af-Pak region. The Indian answers are likely to be less complicated than
most analysts might imagine. Over the last few years, India has engaged
Pakistan in an intensive negotiation on resolving the Kashmir conflict. That
dialogue has stalled because Pakistan's military establishment has not only
gone back on its promise to end anti-India terror but also chosen to step up
the sophistication of cross-border violence as we saw in Mumbai.

Holbrooke should have no difficulty seeing the simple Indo-Pak bargain that
awaits closure — a verifiable end to the terror infrastructure in Pakistan
leading to conflict resolution and normalisation of relations with India.
The strategic trick in the subcontinent is no longer about reconciling the
national interests of Kabul, Islamabad and New Delhi. The elected leaders in
the three countries see their main security threats coming from the same
source: jihadi terrorism.

The most difficult regional task is about ending the army's power to define
Pakistan's national security objectives towards Afghanistan and India and
its more than three decade old alliance with extremist groups to achieve its
aims.

If Holbrooke is prepared walk the American policy in that direction, he
might find India an enthusiastic partner in changing Pakistan's
civil-military relations, helping Washington redirect Islamabad's energies
against the Taliban and the al-Qaeda, and restoring the strategic unity of
the north-western subcontinent.

*The writer is a professor at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore*

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