Six weeks after the attacks in MumbaiPakistan-Indian diplomacy has been a lesson in how not to resolve conflicts, writes Graham Usher in Islamabad British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was in Islamabad on 18 January for the second time in two months. He was treading in the footsteps of United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, Chinese "Special Envoy" He Yafei and Saudi Intelligence head Prince Muqrin bin Abdel-Aziz. All had come to the Pakistan capital to prevent the waves sent by last year's attacks in Mumbai crashing into another India-Pakistan war. And all have given Pakistan the same message. While action against Lashkar-e-Taiba (LT) and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JD) (the two Pakistani groups Delhi says were behind the Mumbai carnage) are "significant first steps", Pakistan needs to go "further and faster" to meets India's concerns. And, with each visit, Pakistan has gone "further and faster". Hours before Miliband landed, Pakistan's Interior Ministry said it had detained 71 LT and JD suspects and closed down 10 of their camps. As Miliband departed, the ministry said Pakistan's own probe into Mumbai would be wrapped up within 10 days, stressing that any Pakistani "perpetrators will be tried under Pakistani laws." Such an outcome would seem to be a victory for Delhi's post-Mumbai policy of coercive diplomacy. Yet India is not happy. Angered by Pakistan's refusal to extradite suspects -- and the US and the UK's refusal to endorse India's claim that Pakistan's "state authorities" were involved in the attacks -- on 17 January Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee called into doubt the Pakistan-India peace process. "I believe Pakistan's position since the Mumbai attack has put a very large question mark over the achievements of the [peace] process over the past four-and-a-half years and... on the utility of dialogue as a means to resolve bilateral issues with Pakistan," he said. That's a sad conclusion for all those who hoped that Pakistan-Indian peace was irreversible. Yet it was predictable given a post-MumbaiIndian strategy that used diplomacy as a substitute for war and allies as proxies in the fight. "I am worried because instead of talking to each other, I feel India and Pakistan are talking at each other," says Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Indian Kashmir -- the divided Himalayan territory that has been the cause of two of the three Pakistan-India wars. Both sides are to blame. Pakistan has not moved on any Indian request other than when forced to do so under international duress. The clearest instance of this was its five- week refusal to accept that the Mumbai gunmen were Pakistani nationals despite a mountain of Indian, American, British and Pakistani evidence confirming that they were. Worse, when Pakistan's National Security Advisor Mehmood Durrani did concede the fact, Pakistani Prime Minister Youssef Raza Gilani dismissed him for bringing "embarrassment" to the country. Both the denial and the dismissal confirmed the Indian charge that Pakistan's post- Mumbai behaviour betrayed a "pattern of evasion". They also strengthened Pakistani charges of government incompetence. But if Pakistan erred tactically, India did so strategically. From the outset Delhi has tried to cast not only Mumbai but also the entire repertoire of Pakistan-Indian relations in the mould of the "global war on terrorism". Modelling itself on the American approach to Iraq and AfghanistanIndia has tried to use force, duress and isolation to compel Pakistan to act. The method has been tried and failed, says Pakistani analyst Ejaz Haidar. It is to "put pressure on Pakistan to do what India wants it to do. Lock up people and entities and regardless of due process. This is the same approach to problem solving as the US. It did not work for the US and it won't work for India." For two reasons. First -- regional ambitions notwithstanding -- India is not the US. In the immediate aftermath of Mumbai there were signs India was readying for missile strikes on LT and JD bases in Pakistan Kashmir -- similar to the US strikes that now routinely pummel Pakistan from Afghanistan. The Pakistani army, via the Americans, told India any such attack would be deemed an act of war and be responded to in kind. Since then, the US, Britain, China and Saudi Arabia have told Delhi to put the missiles back on safety. Second, Pakistan is not Afghanistan or even Iraq. Not only is it a nuclear power, its cooperation is vital for NATO's losing war in Afghanistan. So far the Pakistan army has only hinted that war with Delhi would mean moving some or all of the 100,000 troops on its western border with Afghanistan to its eastern border with India. Such a deployment would sink Barack Obama's new "surge" policy for Afghanistan before it even sets sail. Preventing a Pakistan-India conflict will be the new US president's immediate regional challenge. The upshot of Pakistan and India's reliance on Washington is an impasse that satisfies neither. It would have been better if, after Mumbai, the two states had come together to investigate the perpetrators and address the regional issues that divide them: Kashmir on Pakistan's eastern border and Afghanistan on its western. But that would have required Pakistani intelligence men going to Delhi, Indian leaders coming to Islamabad and US and British foreign secretaries staying at home.
