PRINCETON, N.J., Oct. 18 (UPI) -- Before Sept. 11, South Asia's problems were legion: over a billion people, most of them desperately poor; a history of war and violent conflicts; rising religious militancy; hard-line Hindu nationalists in power in India, the army in charge in Pakistan; newly tested nuclear weapons and a get-tough mood.
Now, it is also the frontline of the U.S. war against suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, his al Qaida terror network and the Taliban.
South Asia may not be able to take the strain. The United States needs to ensure it does nothing to immediately worsen the many crises in South Asia and that it thinks long term, not short term, about its policies in the region.
The greatest concern is Pakistan. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf justified the October 1999 coup that brought him to power by citing the prevailing sense that Pakistan's economy, government, and society were on the verge of collapse. The fall has been swift; about one in three Pakistanis now live below the poverty line, double what it was a decade ago. The scale and seriousness of Pakistan's problems are such that governments have become wary of anything that may set-off the widespread public resentment and anger at the hopelessness of everyday life. They have struggled to not provide political opportunities to the radical Islamist groups that have emerged and feed off the misery.
The U.S. bombing campaign against Afghanistan in response to the terrible attacks of Sept. 11 has opened the door for Islamist groups, with their history of anti-Americanism and strong ties to the Taliban, to take to the streets and challenge Musharraf's decision to support the United States. The longer the United States bombs Afghanistan, the more civilians get killed, the greater the humanitarian and refugee crisis, the more organized and angry the Islamists' challenge.
Musharraf and the army may hold the line, but the Islamists will come out politically strengthened.
Pakistan is also trapped by its conflict with India. Reflecting the intensity and depth of this battle, India and Pakistan have both sought to take advantage of the situation after Sept. 11. India immediately offered political and military support to the United States in its conflict with the Taliban and urged it to include Pakistani-supported Islamic militants fighting in Kashmir as targets of the U.S. assault on terrorism.
Pakistan, under enormous pressure from the United States, eventually decided to turn a liability into an asset and sought to cash in on its location and its leverage over the Taliban.
Seeing Pakistan win the United States over to its side, and with the militants continuing their attacks in Kashmir, India is now trying another more dangerous gambit. It has threatened to follow the U.S. example and attack militant training camps and bases in Pakistan. In an ominous development, India last week suddenly ended a 10-month long effective cease-fire and started shelling Pakistani forces across the border that divides Kashmir.
The United States must press Pakistan to end its support for the militants, restrain India from actions that may trigger a South Asian war, and get serious in working with the international community to resolve this 50-year-old dispute. For this effort to be taken seriously, the United States must show by word and deed that unilateral military action is not the order of the day.
The United States would do well to heed the call of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and suspend its bombing campaign to allow relief supplies to reach the more than 7 million Afghans in direst need. Calling on the U.N. secretary-general and newest Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kofi Annan, showing him the evidence and asking him to mediate with the Taliban for a hand-over of bin Laden for trial, would do more than acknowledge the vital role of the United Nations. It would strengthen the hand of Pakistan's government against the militants and set a better international example.
A longer-term danger is that of nuclear weapons in South Asia. The May 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan put the world on watch. The United States and the international community sought to use sanctions to pressure both countries to exercise restraint and to signal a refusal to accept new nuclear weapons states. In its search for support in the region, the Bush administration finally let go of the already waning U.S. hopes to reverse the nuclearization of South Asia. The United States is lifting all its sanctions against India, most if not (yet) all sanctions against Pakistan, and economic and military assistance is being offered to both.
India and Pakistan may return with renewed vigor to their conventional and nuclear arms race. Last year, India signed a $4 billion arms deal with Russia and a $2 billion deal with Israel, and seeks U.S. arms. Pakistan has seen its purchases limited by a lack of funds. With the army in charge, any resources freed by a blanket lifting of sanctions may go to catching up and keeping up with India rather than to feed, clothe, shelter and educate the poor. With political and economic pressure eased, both sides may speed deployment of their nuclear warheads. Crises will recur, especially over Kashmir, and South Asia may escape the frying pan of terrorism only to fall into the nuclear fire.
Also long term is democracy. Musharraf's new status as ally in the war against Afghanistan and the man most likely to hold Pakistan together may lead to the lifting of the U.S. sanctions levied after his coup.
But concern about Pakistan's stability should not translate into abandoning democracy, and Musharraf should not be allowed or encouraged to stay in power for 10 years, as happened with the two previous Pakistani generals who seized power.
Elections may be just what it takes to mobilize the majority of Pakistanis in the battle against radical Islam. Whenever they have been allowed to choose who should govern them in the past, Pakistanis have decisively rejected Islamic political parties. They would do so again now. The small crowds on the streets supporting the Islamist groups are testament to that. Ten years without democracy may change their minds.
(Dr. Zia Mian researches South Asian security issues with the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. He has taught at Princeton, Yale, and Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan. He is the co-editor of "Out of The Nuclear Shadow", a collection of the best South Asian writing on nuclear disarmament.)
