I've been saying we should pay more attention to India for some time now- finally, the "Think Tanks" (ha! now there's an oxymoron) are saying the same thing.
Cuddle up to India, US urged
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Despite its current preoccupation with Iraq, the US administration should step up its engagement in the Indian sub-continent, which can no longer be considered peripheral to US interests, says a major new report by two key think tanks.
Washington must devote "sustained and high-level attention" to India and Pakistan and be "more active" in helping the two nuclear-armed neighbors manage their conflicts, argues the "Chairmen's Report" of a joint task force on India and South Asia co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Asia Society.
At the same time, the administration of US President George W Bush must devote more resources and broaden the popular base and authority of the government of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai by supporting the deployment of international peacekeeping forces beyond Kabul, particularly in Pashtun areas where the Taliban and its allies appear to be making a comeback.
"We are at a pivotal point in Afghanistan," warned task force co-chairman and former US ambassador to India, Frank Wisner, at the report's launch on Thursday. "We've got to get the security issue right." Added Dennis Kux, who directed the task force, "There would be an enormous impact on Pakistan if the Taliban were to come back to power."
The 93-page report, "New Priorities in South Asia", offers a general framework for how Washington should treat the region in coming years. In addition to Wisner, other co-chairs included Asia Society president and former US ambassador to Pakistan Nicholas Platt, and Marshall Bouton, president of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.
Their 50-person task force consists mainly of regional specialists, prominent expatriates from all three countries, arms-control experts and retired senior US diplomats like Wisner and Platt. Traditionally such groups exercise a strong influence on US policy, particularly if, as in this case, their proposals represent a consensus view of participants.
The group's "core conclusion", according to Wisner, was that South Asia has achieved an unprecedented importance to the US on a range of issues and that Washington needs to treat it accordingly.
Of the three countries covered by the report, the task force was most upbeat about India which, "with its political stability and a decade of steady economic advance, has the potential for long-term political and security partnership and substantially expanded trade and economic relations with the United States".
The group found that, after a long estrangement during the Cold War, US and Indian interests on all fronts "broadly coincide", to such an extent that Washington should treat India as a "friendly country", a status that would, for example, further ease restrictions on exports of sensitive "dual-use" technology that has military as well as civilian applications.
The report also called for a more sustained trade policy dialogue that could, among other things, result in a free trade accord on services, which could provide more hi-tech jobs for Indians in exchange for permitting US business to compete in finance, law, accounting and related professional services.
Potential obstacles to the consolidation of a "genuine partnership" with Washington over the coming years, the report says, include India's failure to further liberalize its economy; possible conflict with Pakistan; and the maintenance of India's social and communal peace, which, could be challenged by the rise of Hindu extremists in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Prospects for continued close ties with Pakistan, described as "one of the most complex and difficult challenges facing US diplomacy anywhere in the world today", are seen as considerably more problematic.
While Islamabad has become a valued partner in the war on terrorism, the two countries' policies "only partially coincide", says the report.
Pakistan's continued support for "Islamist terrorists" waging jihad in Kashmir; its continued failure to prevent pro-Taliban elements from using Pashtun tribal areas as a base to attack Afghanistan; and its alleged nuclear commerce with North Korea must be major concerns for Washington, which should adopt a "much more nuanced approach than that followed by the Bush administration".
While the task force recommended congressional approval for a five-year, US$3 billion aid package for Pakistan, it called for reshaping its contents. Instead of a 50-50 split in the money between social and economic aid on the one hand and security and military assistance on the other, the first category should get two-thirds of the funding. Much of that assistance should be targeted at education, projects in Pashtun areas adjoining Afghanistan and institutional reforms to improve governance.
In particular, US aid should nurture non-governmental organizations and civil society, while pressing the government to reduce military interference - particularly that of the Inter-Services Intelligence - which has covertly backed Islamist parties, in political affairs.
In addition, Washington should commit to providing only one-half of the $3 billion. The rest should be conditioned on the government implementing political, social and economic reforms, its cooperation on terrorism, and its non-proliferation of sensitive technologies. Finally, Washington should ease restrictions on Pakistani textile imports, the report adds.
As for relations between India and Pakistan, the document calls on Washington to be "more active" in helping the two countries manage their rivalry. Although some task force members suggested the US offer to mediate the conflict over Kashmir, the majority opted for a somewhat more restrained role in which Washington could offer suggestions to the parties about how to move forward. "Only India and Pakistan can settle these matters," Wisner said.
In the short term, Washington should help start a bilateral negotiation, possibly by working out a "comprehensive ceasefire" along the Kashmir Line of Control (LoC), the most likely flashpoint for wider conflict, argues the document.
While Pakistan should be pressed more vigorously to make good on President General Pervez Musharraf's pledge to stop infiltration across the LoC, India should step up economic development in Kashmir and reach an accord with the state government that would ease the burden caused by its security forces.
On the nuclear front, the task force called for Washington to review ways to incorporate India and Pakistan into the global non-proliferation framework.
In the meantime, the US should work with both to ensure tighter controls against either country leaking sensitive technology or material to third parties, and to implement confidence-building measures to reduce misunderstandings about missile deployments and flight tests.
As for Afghanistan, the report stressed that the US is "still a long way from [its] goal of a stable self-governing state" 19 months after the defeat of the Taliban. "Apart from Afghanistan itself, perhaps no nation has a greater stake than the United States has in Afghanistan's achieving [its] goals and not reverting to civil war and anarchy," the report concluded.
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