Page 2 of
2 US ally Musharraf in a tangle over
Iran By M K
Bhadrakumar
Pakistan. Islamabad put
on a brave face, with the Foreign Ministry
maintaining, "The fence is on the Iranian side of
the border, and we have no problem with that." But
Tehran calculates that the sheer humiliation of
being treated as an infectious gangrene by all its
neighbors - Afghanistan, India and Iran - should
eventually begin to tell on the Musharraf regime.
The depth of the Iranian sense of hurt and
bitterness came out in
remarks made by Ahmad Khatami,
who led last Friday's prayer meeting in Tehran.
With biting sarcasm, the religious leader said,
"Pakistan is becoming a terrorist state and even
though it is our neighbor, little by little it is
losing its neighborly manners as it has become a
sanctuary for terrorists who kill people in
Zahedan."
Pakistani observers view this
with dismay and disbelief. Prominent strategic
thinker and retired army general Talat Masood was
quoted as saying, "Pakistan has to review its
whole foreign policy, as it has not only become
the most fenced country in the region, but also
since it is being taken to task by all its
neighbors for interfering inside their states."
Masood said, "Pakistan has to assure Iran
by word and deed that in no way it is going to
allow the US to implement its designs through the
territory that it controls. The recent statements
and activities at the Pak-Afghan border are making
the Iranians suspicious of Pakistan's present
government, added to which are a spurt in the
activities at the Pak-Iran border." The prominent
Lahore daily The Nation editorially commented that
Islamabad must genuinely pay heed to Iran's
concerns.
But things are not that simple.
Musharraf seems to consider it expedient to put
distance between him and the Iranian leadership at
this juncture. The processes apparent since
Musharraf's recent extended tours of the Islamic
world fall into a pattern. He began with a tour of
the pro-American states of the Persian Gulf and
the Middle East soon after visits to the region by
the US secretaries of defense and state. Musharraf
was received with extraordinary courtesies in
Riyadh. King Abdullah received him at the airport,
and he became the first Pakistani leader to be
conferred the Abdul Aziz Prize, Saudi Arabia's
highest award to a foreign dignitary.
Musharraf's diplomatic activity culminated
in the meeting of the foreign ministers of the
seven countries belonging to the Organization of
Islamic Conference (OIC) in Islamabad late last
month. The countries represented were Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia and
Indonesia - Sunni Muslim countries subscribing to
what Musharraf calls "enlightened moderation".
Ostensibly, the Islamabad conclave aimed
at addressing the Middle East crisis and at
coordinating the draft communique of the OIC
summit scheduled for Mecca. Yet it was something
like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.
Iran was kept out of the conclave.
It
hasn't been difficult for Tehran to figure out
Musharraf's game plan. When the Pakistani Foreign
Ministry invited OIC ambassadors for a briefing on
the Islamabad conclave, the Iranian ambassador
didn't show up. On Sunday, Iranian Foreign
Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini hit out,
commenting that the way the Islamabad meet was
convened "raised many questions".
He said:
"Everyone believes that all sides should have
taken part in the Islamabad meeting." He revealed
that the Pakistani ambassador in Tehran was called
to the Foreign Ministry to "discuss issues related
to the Islamabad meeting". Hosseini added a bit of
public advice to Islamabad that while organizing
such conferences, "the major countries involved
should always be invited".
But what raises
the diplomatic stakes is that President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad spoke on the issue. Significantly, his
comments came just as he was emplaning for Riyadh
on a working visit on Saturday. In a clear warning
that Musharraf was overreaching, Ahmadinejad
insisted that all countries in the region have
raised questions about the recent conference in
Islamabad and they "should be answered
explicitly".
Ahmadinejad added, "We will
certainly follow up the issue to find out the
details and goals of the conference." What
incensed the Iranian leadership was that the
Islamabad meet also aimed at working out a
consensus within the OIC over the so-called "Arab
peace initiative", which is being resurrected by
Riyadh (at the behest of the US), devolving on a
five-year-old Saudi formula adopted at the Beirut
summit of the Arab League in 2002 for settling the
Arab-Israeli conflict.
(The Saudi peace
formula envisaged that Israel would withdraw to
the borders that existed prior to the 1967 Six Day
War - when Israel captured the West Bank and East
Jerusalem from Jordan; the Gaza Strip and the
Sinai Peninsula from Egypt; and the Golan Heights
from Syria - and in return the Arab world would
fully recognize and normalize relations with
Israel.)
Iran rightly estimates that
Musharraf's grandiloquent "Islamic action plan"
for the Middle East crisis in essence sub-serves
the US agenda of ameliorating Israel's regional
isolation without substantially addressing the
Palestinian problem. On Sunday, Iranian Foreign
Minister Manuchehr Mottaki reminded Islamabad on
the imperatives of Iran-Pakistan cooperation at
the bilateral, regional and international levels.
A hurried visit by the Pakistani foreign minister
to Tehran seems to be in the cards - his second
visit in as many months. (Musharraf paid a visit
to Tehran on February 5.)
However, there
is a sideshow to these happenings that is no less
profound. US intelligence operatives must be
laughing all the way to Washington that they could
manage with such ease what their suave diplomats
(and wily Congress members) have had a hard time
achieving in recent years - arresting Islamabad
and New Delhi from finalizing the $7 billion
Iran-Pakistan-India gas-pipeline project. In
geopolitical terms, the project holds the definite
potential to forge a unified Asian energy market,
with deep implications for US energy security.
Washington was increasingly finding it
counterproductive to resort to arm-twisting New
Delhi and Islamabad into putting the project on
the back burner until such time as US-Iran
relations were normalized and Washington, too,
could dip into Iran's energy reserves.
Now, just as it was becoming clear that
the three regional capitals were inching toward
finalization of the project at a trilateral
meeting in Tehran in June, the high volatility in
the security situation in the Iran-Pakistan border
region puts question marks on their energy
dialogue. To be sure, the pipeline project is
predicated on a climate of trust and confidence
prevailing among the three parties.
There
was much merit in US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice's recent fulsome praise that
"this has been a stalwart fighter, Pakistan's
Musharraf, in this fight". Those in Washington who
insinuated that he deserved "an unusually tough
message" over the "war on terror" have since
hastily beaten a retreat. They didn't know what
they were saying.
M K
Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years,
with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan
(1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
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