PAK
CAN’T TAKE INDIA’S RESTRAINT GRANTED FOR LONG: WALL STREET
Pakistan cannot take India’s policy of
strategic restraint for granted for too long and if Islamabad rejects Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s offer of cooperation, it will become part of a case
for making the country a “pariah nation”, a US daily has claimed.
“Modi is practicing restraint for now, but Islamabad can’t rely on
that continuing. Modi’s offer of cooperation, if rejected, will become part of
a case for making Pakistan even more of a pariah nation than it already is,”
The Wall Street Journal said in an opinion piece on Tuesday.
“If the (Pakistani) military continues to send arms and fighters
across the border, the Indian Prime Minister will have a strong justification
to take action,” it warned.
The Wall Street Journal said India has always enjoyed the moral
high ground on the terrorism issue, but past Congress and BJP governments
lacked the courage to assert it forthrightly.
That led to a policy of “strategic restraint”, which meant that
Pakistan would never be held accountable for its terrorist proxies, no matter
how heinous their attacks, it noted.
Praising Modi for deciding against taking any military action, the
daily said even as he walked back threats of military action, he replaced them
with a pledge to isolate Pakistan internationally if the military doesn’t stop
supporting terrorist groups.
He is considering the cancellation of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty,
which protects Pakistan’s rights to the Indus River’s water.
He could also withdraw most-favoured-nation trading status,
granted in 1996, that Pakistan has never reciprocated, the daily said.
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs, Sameer Lalwani, Deputy
Director of the Stimson Center’s South Asia program, said in the wake of the
Uri attack, the understandable anger and frustration of Indian policymakers and
strategies is building momentum for major military action.
“But the arguments for such action are highly debatable, if not
incorrect.
A major militarised response might satisfy a desire for revenge,
but it is not clear that it would serve the Indian government’s political,
credibility, prestige, or coercive interests,” Lalwani said.
“The 2009 elections and recent polling data suggest thatIndian
prime ministers have thus far suffered no real political costs for opting
against military actions in retribution for major attacks.
“Further, the country could actually weaken its credibility if it
embarked on a militarily disastrous adventure that exposes gaps in
capabilities,” he said.
“Finally, although India has fulminated over its lack of options
to punish its enemies, it has invested little in the comparatively easier
approach of denying its enemies their goals.
“With new considerations of costs and benefits, Indian strategists
might turn their conversations toward security through meaningful capabilities
and political engagements and away from risky, punitive gambits,” Lalwani
wrote.
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