As the world watches closely what India will do next, New Delhi is caught between finding an appropriate response to the Mumbai terror attacks that will result in definitive action against terrorist outfits in Pakistan but forestall any flare-up between the two countries.
The need to fashion such a response has pre-occupied Prime Minister and his team of foreign policy makers since the attacks last week, but New Delhi is conscious that it should not result in brinkmanship. In his address to the nation subsequently, Singh asserted that India will ??take up strongly with our neighbours that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated, and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them??.
A military reprisal, however, is being ruled out given that both India and Pakistan are nuclear weapon states, which then paves the way for a diplomatic offensive as a likely option. Government circles in fact indicated that Prime Minister himself made this clear at the CWC meeting on Sunday night, when he rejected suggestions of a buildup along the border. A similar exercise, the PM pointed out, in the wake of terrorist attack on Parliament when the Vajpayee regime ordered a full scale mobilisation on the border did not prove fruitful, except for costing the exchequer about Rs 8,000 crore.
Singh reportedly told the meeting that a military offensive would also fritter away the diplomatic goodwill and sympathy for India. It is in the light of such concerns that the sudden visit of US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who reaches here on Wednesday. The US is clearly worried that a possible brinkmanship could lead to Pakistan pulling out troops from the Afghan border and redeploy them on the Indian side. Such a step, they fear, would jeopardise their ongoing war against the Al Qaeda and the Taliban on the Afghan border.
The UPA leadership, on the other hand, is also against scaling down diplomatic relations, contending that as such moves only become counter-productive. There were suggestions by some senior ministers that the composite dialogue process be suspended and CBMs like the train to Pakistan be stopped, but the assessment is that they will not lead to the desired objective of putting an end to the terror network.