In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
HIMALAYAN BLUNDER OF PRESIDENT BUSH
[Shamim A Siddiqi, New York]
Never in the history of the United
States a president had
violated the decency and decorum of its foreign policy so much as President Bush
committed during his last week’s Indo-Pakistan visit. Both India
and Pakistan
are the nuclear power on merit of possessing nuclear arsenal and its allied
technology that they perfected in 1998. Since then, in spite of sanctions from the
USA, they went
on multiplying their strength gradually with the result that they are standing
today as rivals with extreme nuclear destructive power and the unresolved Kashmir
issue as the sharpest bone of contention for about six decades with three wars
at its back. If the dispute about Kashmir flares up any
time, it would engulf
the world into third great war of vast human annihilation, an unthinkable
catastrophe lurking over the human specie.
President Bush after the tragedy
of September 11, 2001 never feels tired of declaring Pakistan as its Strategic
fore-runner partner in his fight against terrorism, the key point of his
government’s home and foreign policy and the barometer on which he tests the
extent of “royalty” of his friends and allies. In reality, only Pakistan
is fighting Bush’s war against terrorism in all sincerity as President Musharraf
very often had professed and President Bush had repeatedly confirmed
. Over 80,000 Pakistan’s
armed men are fighting this battle and its security forces at all fronts. It has
so far lost 600 solders in the surrogate war of Mr. Bush but with what rewards?
President Bush, had he been a “true” friend and a partner of Pakistan,
he could have asked and applied full diplomatic “pressure” on Indian government
to resolve the Kashmir issue with Pakistan
as a pre-condition of offering nuclear facilities to India
for its peaceful needs with so many added advantages in its wake. It would have
the potentials to transform India
into a benevolent economy for its teeming millions. India like China is equally
desperate to get energy and its sources for their respective growing industrial
and commercial needs. India
would have no
choice but to agree to this demand and President Bush would have definitely won
over two hearts with one deal, the people of India
and the people of Pakistan.
But he lost this opportunity in his eagerness to contain China
and make the “secular” India
as it allies. How far this unnatural “haste” will succeed can be anybody’s
guess, keeping
in mind the centuries old Brahmanic “twist and turns” in Indian politics.
It shows that President Bush has
no vision, no foresightedness and is not a polished diplomat. He has used his
“power-dynamics” bluntly out of “arrogance” of Indian “internal” hegemonies, is
certainly not the friend of Muslims and his slogan of war against terrorism is
a “hoax” and only a means of coercion and intimidation for his adversaries who refuse
to tow his line. He has, thus, lost a historic opportunity to create a
good will in the Muslim world. A situation that could generate as an act of
permanent peace in the region will now result more in dissention, fight and
enimical abscission against the mega-superpower. He has lost the opportunity to
use both India and
Pakistan in building
the “defense wall” against China.
The vagaries of Indian politics through opposition by the communist party, intensification
of Saffron culture and Muslim’s antagonism will play its dominant role towards
opposite direction. By decreeing that “the US
is keeping India
and Pakistan at
two different levels” [NY Times dated March
5, 2006], he has weekend his case against China.
This “two-nations-two-policies” will harden the attitude of Pakistan people to
new heights and the political-cum-religious parties will agitate against the USA
in every strategic zone whereas American armed men and women will continue to
pay the price for this “folly” by giving up their valuable lives every day for
the cause that their C-in-C
has thrown away in pieces out of his haste and “immaturity” in
diplomatic arena.
The matter does not end here. In the language of President Bush. there
are many “rogue” nations in the world like Iran,
North Korea and
Brazil who are
seriously aspiring to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes. The open favorable
concession given to India
by President Bush will agitate their inner instinct to make “undisguised” efforts in that
direction and the USA
or any power would have no moral stand to oppose their “natural” urge.
President Bush, in fact, has opened the Pandora box of “claims” and hidden
aspirations of many “rouge” countries and the Security Council or any war of
intimidation will not be able to deter them. Only Mr. Bush will be blamed by
historians and our progenies for creating the inevitable ”unstable”
condition in the world. This is the climax of his “crusade” against Muslims to
whom he is out to teach “democracy” and freedom. None will believe him and his
tall talks any more. Even his friends will try to keep aloof from him and they
are already distancing from him gradually.
This magnanimous offer to India
is yet to be approved by the Congress where a lot of murmuring against it is
already echoing in its Rwanda.
A momentum is building in Washington.
The treaty of nonproliferation is in doubt. Both India
and Pakistan
have not signed it and
perhaps will never. Japan
and Germany who
are most developed nations cannot be debarred by SC to disdain from it. So is
the case with South Korea
and Taiwan to
have nuclear power as a deterrent against China.
This open policy of the US
to contain China
may incline it to have deeper and closer ties of friendship with Russia
that is not happy too with the USA
whose criticism of human rights violation is accelerating both against China
and Russia.
Under these circumstances the war
of insurgency both in Iraq
and Afghanistan
is likely to last long. The US
will be bogged down at both the places. Retreat from Iraq
will become a distant
dream. It will burden the US
economy with more war sustaining expenses and thereby increasing national debt
that is already paying 237 billion Dollar interest on debt servicing. In its
wake, there will be more curtailment of provisions for the poor and needy of
this country. The poor will suffer most and the rich will become richer by
exporting their goods and services to Indian markets. The only beneficiary from
the nuclear facility to India
will be the US
corporate world that would benefit from expanded market economy. That is the only
prevailing interest that President Bush had in mind when he planned to provide
the nuclear facilities for peaceful purposes to India,
separating it from military projects, a strategy that would never be verifiable
by anyone.
Though President Bush has offered
this nuclear facility to India
but only time will tell that what final shape it would take at the end, if all
goes through well and it crosses all the hurdles that are lying ahead of it.
But it would be a different story. In the mean time the immaturity of President
Bush stands authenticated beyond any shadow of doubt and what would be the
political and economic ramification of his Himalayan blunder, only time will be
its witness. Every thing is at stake at this stage and only God knows as to
whether some good will come out of it or not.
Shamim Siddiqi
March 5, 2006