Pak-India rivalry

The response that Pakistan’s Foreign Office could come up with to the US forces’ operation in Abbottabad was a very carefully selected one and even that was not meant for the Americans, but was actually an indirect message for another country.

Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir warned that it will be catastrophic if any other country even imagines it can follow the example of the United States. He said that if any country ever acted on the assumption that it had a right to unilateralism of any sort, it would be construed as a miscalculation that could result in terrible catastrophe. There are no doubts that this warning was meant for India, which would also like to target some individuals in Pakistan – whom it believes are responsible for terrorist attacks on the Indian soil.

The message to the Americans from the GHQ was more potent, but again, it was also rather subdued than the fierce tone that could have been used considering that the country’s sovereignty had been breached.

Chairing a Corps Commanders’ Conference, Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani hinted that military and intelligence cooperation with the US might be reviewed if an Abbottabad-type action that violates the sovereignty of Pakistan takes place again.

The military leadership also kept its focus on India, as the participants of the meeting took serious note of the assertions made by the Indian military about conducting similar operations and made it made clear that “any misadventures would be responded to very strongly”.

Considering the tight spot that Pakistan is in after the discovery that Osama bin Laden was hiding, not in the caves of Afghanistan or the rigid terrain of Pakistan’s tribal belt, but the garrison city of Abbottabad, the sovereignty issue does not really come into contention as far as the US’ operation is concerned, apart from the obligatory reaction to the incident. But what matters more to Pakistan is that India should not be having ideas of acting in a similar manner. Would India embarking on a mission similar to that of the US be a bigger wrong than what the Americans did? No. Any country violating Pakistan’s sovereignty should be dealt with in the same manner, but it is a different argument that individuals involved in terrorist activities should not be finding refuge in Pakistan in the first place. Pakistan’s obsession with India knows no bounds. It needs to set its priorities straight. There are bigger problems than the old Pak-India rivalry.