Pakistan has even more cards to play in the war against terror than Cameron claims, writes Gamal Nkrumah ritain's Prime Minister David Cameron of merely three months gives good speeches, no question about it. The same, alas, cannot be said of Pakistani President Asif Zardari. "I believe that the international community, which Pakistan belongs to, is in the process of losing the war against the Taliban," Zardari was quoted as saying, in an interview with the French daily Le Monde, during the first leg of his European tour which also took him to Britain. "And that is, above all, because we have lost the battle for hearts and minds," he extrapolated. His admonition, needless to say, fell on deaf ears. The real reason for the reluctance of India and Western powers to take Zardari's observations seriously is that Pakistan appears to have reverted to the tactics of its former military rulers, when supporting militant Islamists and cross-border sabotage in India were a standard tool of policy. The suspicion in Western capitals and New Delhi is that the basic animus driving Pakistani foreign policy remains the militant Islamists running the country intelligence services. It is up to Zardari to throw in the towel and prove his metal. "David Cameron has been doing some plain talking. Now Zardari will be doing the plain talking," trumpeted The Guardian. "It is unfortunate that certain individuals continue to express doubts and fears about our determination to fight militants to the end," Zardari said in a statement that failed to convince his adversaries that he is in the same boat as they are. The Pakistanis argue that they do not wish to destabilise. "Such fears will only weaken the international effort to fight militants and extremists," Zardari protested in a vain attempt to placate his critics in India and the West. The Pakistani president is in Britain partly to launch the political career of his son Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, currently studying at Oxford University and co-chairman with his father of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). He is to be made PPP chairman regardless of the logic underpinning his leadership. There are those in Pakistan who deeply resent the monarchical manner in which Bilawal is to assume leadership of the PPP without proving his personal credentials. Such dynastic politics was once prevalent in India as it now is in Pakistan. However, in India no aspiring heir would be spared a grueling test of competence. Given the miserable condition of Pakistan's subsistence economy, especially in the rural backwaters of the hardest hit areas by monsoon rains, there are many in Pakistan and abroad who believe that Zardari's European tour is untimely. "I'm not going to meet with the president because I believe that a head of state needs to be in his country of origin when there is a state of emergency," Lord Nazir Ahmed was quoted as saying on the eve of Zardari's visit to Britain. "The issue is the huge environmental catastrophe," fellow Labour Party lawmaker Khalid Mahmoud concurred. Several prominent British politicians of Pakistani descent were outraged at the timing of Zardari's official visit to Britain. Pakistani affairs, political and environmental, set off ripples that grew to tsunami size this week. Pakistan is in the grip of a devastating natural disaster with floods and torrential monsoon rains having rendered three million Pakistanis homeless and claimed the lives of hundreds of people. The latest count estimates those dead at 1,500. Zardari and the PPP along with their neighbours in India believe that they are united in their enthusiasm for civil society. The Indians don't see eye to eye with their Pakistani counterparts. New Delhi views the PPP and the entire Pakistani political establishment as being manipulated by the military or, more pointedly, the militants. The latter keep Zardari presumably in power but paradoxically lack leverage. This, his detractors note, is not the case in India where a vibrant civil society precludes the ascendency militants. In light of the fresh disturbances in the predominantly Muslim Indian state of Kashmir this week (the worst in years), the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah warned of "sinister designs of vested interests against peace," presumably by Pakistan. The Indian media is replete with headlines such as "Peace cannot be built on Pakistan lies". According to an editorial in the Hindustan Times, Pakistan is engaged in the "sponsorship of terror". The accusation comes in the wake of a tirade of criticism unleashed by British Prime Minister Cameron during a visit to India last week. Cameron insinuated that Pakistani intelligence had made their bed with the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda overlords. "We want to see a strong, stable democratic Pakistan," Cameron told his Indian hosts. Pakistani demonstrators burnt effigies of Cameron in revenge. "But all we cannot tolerate in any sense the idea this country is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror whether to India, whether to Afghanistan or to anywhere else in the world," Cameron summed up. "Pakistan needs to do more to shut terror groups down." The Hindustan Times warned that "sponsorship of terrorism, as an instrument of policy, is wholly condemnable and must cease forthwith," reflecting Indian public opinion. "India cannot hope to be one of the great powers of the 21st century if it continues to engage in pointless hostility of a small neighbour [Pakistan]. It is therefore important to improve relations with Pakistan," the paper concluded. The trick is that the angry stalemate between India and Pakistan might just about give way to, well, a cordial stalemate. To date, India tended to retaliate only when Islamabad's intervention in its internal affairs threatened the wider strategic balance in South Asia. India, after all, does not want to risk chaos in its own backyard. India has long identified Pakistan's Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI) as being largely responsible for inciting Kashmiri separatists and instigating acts of terrorism on Indian territory, sabotaging Indian national interests. India has long warned of the ISI's close collaboration with Afghanistan's outlawed Taliban. On the basis of his performance so far, Zardari appears incapable of containing the threat from the ISI, the Taliban or Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists either within Pakistan or in South Asia at large. "Educated Indians take a different view," the Times of India recently pontificated. "They argue that there is only one compelling reason to talk to Pakistan: to put an end to cross-border terrorism." The paper alluded to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's accentuation of the "trust deficit" between India and Pakistan. The influential Indian daily, however, also noted his emphasis on the "confidence-building measures" between the two neighbours. Even so, there are many in India who despise the softly-softly approach towards Pakistan. "Why bother with a polite step-by-step engagement with Pakistan when the situation is so grave," the paper pointed out. On the face of it, Islamabad does not seem to be the sort of partner Westerner powers need in their "war on terror". Pakistan is a country riddled with corruption and cronyism. Moreover, Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state, a country of 180 million people -- predominantly Muslim. Islamabad has traditionally propped up secessionist forces in neighbouring India particularly militant Islamist hardliners of Kashmir. Yet, successive US administrations have extolled Pakistan's role as a pillar of the Pax Americana in the region. Pakistan should put in place mechanisms to steer the country out of harms way. Disengagement with Pakistan is not a good idea as Cameron surely understands. Islamabad could be in even bigger trouble if its Western benefactors kick it to the curb. Zardari met with Cameron as well as Minister Without Portfolio, Baroness Warsi, herself of Pakistani descent. Zardari did not meet with British Foreign Minister William Hague, who is on summer break, but he did manage a meeting with British Home Secretary Theresa May. Nothing concrete transpired from those meetings. The Financial Times described Pakistan's relationship with its former colonial master, Britain, as a "prickly partnership", and so it is. The sole purpose of Zardari's visit appeared a vain attempt at patching over frivilous and widely publicised political wranglings while avoiding any constructive debate on the challenges facing Pakistan. A particularly thoughtful insight into President Zardari's thinking was offered on the eve of his European tour. "Pakistanis are disappointed in Cameron's comments especially as they were said in India," Zardari said. This "prickly partnership" is more than some idle truism. Britain is Pakistan's single most important trading partner within the European Union with the volume of trade between the two countries currently standing at $38 billion. There are a million British citizens of Pakistani origin many of whom are prominent members of society especially in the business and commercial sectors. Britain is in a position to help if it so desires. The Pakistani President, it should be said, has made his own foreign policy blunders. But courting Britain is not one of those errors of judgement. Pakistani policymakers need to more clearly understand whether Islamabad can only further its interests by posturing itself as the champion of Islam in South Asia or posing as the Islamic democratic alternative to India. Be that as it may, Pakistan has long ceased being a dagger in the heart of secularist India. Islamabad can hardly even be called a thorn in New Delhi's side.
