The second round

After diplomacy fails, the sword is unsheathed

Notwithstanding the initial war-cry in the United States following the terrorist attacks of September 11, President George Bush gave more than three weeks for diplomacy to play its role in dealing with the threat of jehadi terrorism. Afghanistan’s dreaded and globally isolated Taliban regime was given ample opportunity to make amends, and hand over Osama bin Laden, the principal architect of jehadi terrorism worldwide. The military action unleashed on Sunday came as a result of the failure of diplomacy and political initiatives. India has very correctly stood with the US in its initial diplomatic response and now in its military response. India’s national security interests are directly addressed by the weakening and elimination of the sources of jehadi terrorism in this region, having been the worst affected nation on this count. There are understandable concerns in this country about the recent bonhomie between the US and Pakistan. India has shown ample evidence to the world of Pakistan’s complicity and active support for terrorist outfits operating out of both Afghanistan and Pakistan and specifically targeting India. However, at this point in time it would be churlish on our part to over-emphasise this aspect of the problem, when the US is engaged in destroying a key source of the problem.

After much dithering the Bush administration has come around to conceding the direct link between jehadi terrorist groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir and bin Laden’s Al Qaida. Once this network is targeted and eliminated, the US will have to pursue the campaign against groups which are linked to this network and operate in and around India. It is just as well that Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf has stated that the military action launched on Sunday is not a war against Afghanistan but in fact a war against terrorism. Indeed, so it is. Hence the war must go beyond altering the regime in Afghanistan and address the threat of terrorism in the neighbourhood as a whole, including the operation of terrorist groups within Pakistan. If this is the US agenda, India must support it wholeheartedly, as it has done so far.