by Selig S. Harrison
In response to U.S. pressure, India and Pakistan recently conducted their first diplomatic dialogue since the Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba staged its terrorist attack on Mumbai in November 2008. The discussions were acrimonious, and the blame game began almost immediately after. As a precondition for substantive negotiations, India demanded punishment of the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack and a crackdown on Lashkar-e-Taiba’s paramilitary operations. Pakistan repeated its longstanding position that negotiations on other issues cannot proceed unless the Kashmir issue is addressed.
To promote a détente, the U.S.should support Pakistan’s embattled president, Asif Ali Zardari, in his escalating struggle with the generals in Islamabad over the terms of peace with New Delhi. The principal obstacle to peace is the Pakistan Army, which needs tensions with India to justify the enormous, U.S.-subsidized defense budgets that underpin its privileged status in Pakistan. Serving and retired generals run a variety of Army-linked business conglomerates with net assets exceeding $38 billion.
Zardari is often dismissed as a corrupt playboy incapable of governing. But he has demonstrated surprising courage and consistency in seeking to downgrade the Kashmir issue and to jump-start economic cooperation with India, starting with liberalized trade, as the key to stabilizing Pakistan. Oversize defense budgets cripple Pakistan, he argues, by starving economic-development programs. Islamist extremists exploit the resulting economic unrest. Hardliners in Islamabad warn that opening up trade would lead to economic domination by India. But Zardari argues “economic isolationism” has necessitated costly imports from afar that would be much cheaper from next-door India and has denied many Pakistani industries profitable export markets in that country. On Kashmir, Zardari suggests that the issue be deferred until economic cooperation gradually softens political tensions. He notes that India and China have combined a de-escalation of their border dispute with increased economic interchange.
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