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The Rediff Special/ Professor Brahma Chellaney

The Clinton visit: Hype and Reality

After his five-day tour of the world's most populous democracy, US President Bill Clinton has reasons to be both happy and unhappy: he has set in motion a process for, as he put it, a new "dynamic and lasting partnership" with India, but he could not persuade New Delhi to change its position on the nuclear issue, Kashmir or a fresh global trade round. By agreeing to institutionalise a multifaceted process of closer engagement, India and the United States are making a new beginning.

Clinton's visit, and the new institutional framework for Indo-US partnership, clearly show that India's gamble in going overtly nuclear has paid off. Today, India is seen as a rising Asian power that needs to be cultivated.

While America's focus on India is largely in a positive matrix, especially in relation to its business interests and possibilities of strategic cooperation, America's focus on Pakistan is in a negative context as a country that is drifting towards greater terrorism, financial bankruptcy, and potential political and social chaos. Clinton's mere six-hour stop in Pakistan speaks for itself.

How Washington views Pakistan today was best exemplified by the manner Clinton arrived in Islamabad in an unmarked jet moments after a decoy aircraft carrying a Clinton look-alike had landed there. Clinton's motorcade from Islamabad airport contained six black limousines, with the cars switching positions once they left the airport.

This was the first known instance of a US president having travelled to another country with the cover of a decoy plane and decoy men -- a deception set up against any terrorists wanting to assassinate Clinton. As the president's spokespersons said, the elaborate security precautions were necessitated by the fact that Pakistan harbours terrorists, some of whom are actually members of the Pakistan military. It's no wonder that Clinton did not inspect a guard of honour.

Also, no photograph was allowed showing Clinton shaking hands with Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf, or even a picture of Clinton and Musharraf together by themselves. Had such a photograph been taken, US presidential candidate George W Bush Jr would have made good use of it in the campaign to show that the Clinton-Gore team is coddling dictators. After all, Clinton had bitingly criticised Bush's father, then-president George Bush, in the 1992 presidential campaign for coddling dictators.

What Clinton said in Islamabad should be honey to Indian ears: He spoke about the twin evils plaguing Pakistan, "violence and extremism"; he said the new era does not support those who seek to "redraw borders in blood"; he deprecated the "deliberate killings of innocents" and "attacks against civilians across the Line of Control"; and he warned of a "bigger, bloodier conflict" and the danger of Pakistan getting "more isolated." He asked the military regime to "intensify its efforts against those who inflict terror."

It is crystal clear that America's relationship with Pakistan has swung in a direction opposite to the Cold War years. While Washington looks at India as a big potential market for its goods and services, it now looks at Pakistan as a big potential disaster. After all, the terrorism from Pakistan has reached the doorsteps of America, as illustrated by the World Trade Centre bombing in New York and the shootings outside the CIA headquarters near Washington.

But do the presidential statements amount to a US policy shift in India's favour? India should not rush to believe what it wants to believe. America is no longer siding with Pakistan. That's apparent. But that does not automatically translate into a 'tilt' towards India. America is doing what it has always been doing: assertively promoting its interests. It is not going to promote India's interests in relation to Pakistan or any other country. America's interests today demand closer engagement with India than Pakistan.

If promotion of commercial interests in India demands massaging India's ego or supporting respect for the LoC in Kashmir, that's a small contribution to make for larger gains. Calling for cessation of violence and respect for the LoC is an elementary, common sense approach. After all, India cannot indefinitely and unilaterally respect the LoC if Pakistan continues to openly challenge the LoC.

Any Indian response would be quite damaging for Pakistan. It was to buy Indian restraint and prevent Pakistan's defeat that Clinton intervened during the Kargil war, compelling India to fight the conflict on Indian soil and on terms set by Islamabad.

Clinton did not say, and will not say, that an over-patient India has the right to hit back at terrorists by crossing the LoC if Pakistan does not rein in its terrorist elements.

Clinton's statements in New Delhi showed he had been well tutored on the best way to deliver any message to India: wrap it in two layers, one that pandered to its ego and the other that appealed to its self-interest. This he did in great style and prose. In his speech to Parliament, Clinton was generous with his praises for India, calling it repeatedly "a great nation" and welcoming its "leadership in the region." He said, "Only India can determine its interests." He also disclaimed interest in a mediatory role on Kashmir.

But behind words mellifluous to Indian ears lay clear objectives: he asked India to join the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, support the proposed fissile material cut-off treaty, and accept strategic restraint. He urged India to emulate his approach and engage the military regime in Pakistan. He also wanted India to remove its remaining barriers to trade and investment.

He delivered an unmistakable message to India for dialogue with the military junta in Islamabad even before Pakistan has ceased its export of terrorism. In New Delhi, Clinton said India should show "democracy is about dialogue"; and in Islamabad, he said conditions were necessary "so that dialogue can succeed", implying conditions were necessary for success, not start, of talks.

While he denied any interest in mediating the Kashmir problem, he also said the United States will do everything to "restore the promise and process of Lahore."

What conclusions should one draw?

First, the United States will remain a background player in India-Pakistan issues, actively goading the two to resume dialogue and trying to influence policies of both. Not many know that the Lahore process was inspired by Washington and that a number of US-suggested ideas were incorporated in the Lahore Declaration.

Second, the level of terrorism sponsored by Pakistan is unlikely to perceptively decrease inthe foreseeable future. Pakistan will remain a fundamentalist state steeped in implacable hostility towards India. Despite bearing the main brunt of Pakistani terrorism, India cannot expect the United States to support any proactive counter-measures against terrorism.

Washington, in fact, will disapprove even non-military counter-measures by India, such as slashing the bloated strength of the Pakistan high commission in New Delhi or stripping Pakistan of its most-favoured-nation treatment in trade matters.

Third, India, while welcoming Clinton's latest pronouncements, has to understand that there is no piggyback approach to dealing with Pakistan. Pakistan is largely India's problem, and India has to effectively deal with it. The United States cannot help India to resolve or contain the Pakistan problem. India, therefore, needs no certificate of approval for its positions or policies; and the United States will continue to treat India as a Siamese twin of Pakistan as long as India passively stays put in the sub-continental straitjacket.

The media focus in India on what Clinton said on Pakistan, Kashmir and LoC was excessive. Those issues are important for New Delhi, but what makes a potential partnership with the United States interesting are India's larger strategic interests and concerns. Although China did figure in the Clinton-Vajpayee talks, there was no mention of it in public. Why do Indian officials and media not speak up on the undue respect US policy accords China, the world's worst proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and and the worst violator of human rights?

Overall, India can be satisfied that Clinton's visit has helped establish an institutionalised framework for closer US-Indian co-operation. The two sides agreed to hold a series of regular dialogues at different levels and in different areas, including between the US president and the Indian prime minister. A broader and deeper relationship between the world's largest and most powerful democracies is now inevitable, but it will be built on the basis of a gradual, step-by-step process.

Since such a partnership will be between unequals, India needs hard-nosed pragmatism, not sentimentality, and tangible reciprocity, not unilateral concessions from its side.

Professor Brahma Chellaney, a well-known commentator and columnist on strategic affairs, is based at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.

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