Dec 24, 2014
As far as the Indian side is concerned, all this is part of a continuing Faustian bargain between US and Pakistan that will have no winners, only losers. The Pakistani DNA cannot be changed.
Co-author of a legislation that lavished billions of dollars on Pakistan throughout the years the country fostered terrorist groups, often killing American soldiers in Afghanistan, US secretary of state John Kerry is a figure who evokes mixed feelings among Indian interlocutors. On surface, he is affable and charming with Indian officials and speaks highly of India (he's headed for the Vibrant Gujarat summit in January). But his inexplicable support for Pakistan even when it is brazenly using terrorism as a policy instrument is something that baffles Indian officials, none of whom would speak on record.
In fact, Kerry's reputation as an apologist for Pakistan is vividly chronicled even in the opening title sequence of 'Homeland'. Whereas Hillary Clinton is shown with her famous "You can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them to only bite your neighbours,'' admonition of Pakistan, Kerry is shown defending the country, saying "there are things that Pakistan has done, as complicated as this relationship is.''
In the days following his meeting with Raheel Sharif, it became evident that still there are things that Kerry and his ilk in Washington hope Pakistan will do, as complicated as this relationship is, in return for more life-giving aid, sustenance, and military hardware. Within days of Sharif's return to Pakistan, its military took out two prominent terrorists, including al-Qaida fugitive Adnan el-Shukrijumah and Umar Farooq. In return, the US ordered the release of Latif Mehsud, the Pakistan Taliban's No. 2 from a military prison in Afghanistan. Intelligence circles suspect the attack in the Army Public School in Peshawar is linked to that.
As far as the Indian side is concerned, all this is part of a continuing Faustian bargain between US and Pakistan that will have no winners, only losers. The Pakistani DNA cannot be changed. In fact, most US analysts too held out bleak prospects of Pakistan revisiting its 'good terrorists, bad terrorists' policy.
Complicated relationship: John Kerry with Nawaz Sharif
One exception: CNN's Peter Bergen, who described the Peshawar attack as Pakistan's 9/11, recited the entire Pakistani military narrative of fighting terrorism, and wrote: "Today the Pakistani military understands that the Frankenstein that it helped to create must now be killed.''
But Pakistan's own analysts were scoffing at the idea. "Pakistan's greatest enemy is denial,'' cautioned the country's exenvoy to the US, Hussain Haqqani, reckoning that the establishment, set in its ways, will not change easily. That became evident soon enough when it sprang 26/11 planner Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi from prison (ostensibly on bail), prompting Christine Fair, a Pakistan expert at Georgetown University, to note that even seasoned analyst such as Peter Bergen embrace rhetoric as fact.
''Alas, the (Peshawar) attack — no matter how heinous — will not motivate Pakistan to abandon its long-held reliance upon Islamist militant groups," wrote Fair, reckoning that, "many tens of thousands of Pakistanis will die long before the army gives up its jihad habit.'' Under the headline "Crucible of terror threatening the world: How the future of Pakistan is getting darker'', Michael Burleigh had this to note in the Daily Mail: "The venal political class in Pakistan has united in its revulsion at this latest atrocity, but by next week they'll be back to their old ways.'' It didn't take so long. Less than 48 hours elapsed between the Peshawar attack and Lakhvi's release.
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