Surgical strike robs
Pak of anti-India proxy war options
Terror
Hit On Army, Cities Now Tough
Retaliating
to India's crossLoC strike could be a knotty dilemma for Pakistan. An Uri-type
attack carries the risk of serious escalation while a jihadi strike on civilians
will draw attention to Pakistan's terror links even as Kashmir seems to have
fallen off the map.
Though
the possibility of a counterstrike looms large on the Indian security radar,
Pakistan might find itself wrestling with unattractive choices resulting from a
misplaced assessment of India's response to a terror attack.
The
decision to “sanction“ the attack on the Army camp at Uri and Pakistan PM Nawaz
Sharif 's apparent acquiescence to the nation's military's plans seem to have
been based on an estimation that the protests in Kashmir had made it “ripe“ for
an external push.
With the
Modi government surprising Pakistan, the tables seem to have turned. Using one
of its proxies to target another Indian military camp in Jammu & Kashmir or
even elsewhere is fraught with the risk of such an act leading to full-scale
hostilities.
India can
no longer be counted on to take a hit on the jaw and remain quiescent. This
will almost certainly invite international criticism, and its isolation among
Saarc nations can hardly be reassuring for Pakistan.
On the
other hand, a “deniable“ terrorist attack on an Indian city presents a fresh
set of problems. Any trail that leads to groups fostered by Pakistan will only
enhance its image as a terror factory .
PM
Narendra Modi's decision does raise issues for India, as surgical strikes may
not be easy to repeat after every terror attack. The Pakistan military would
work to close the loopholes along the LoC that Indian troops exploited.
Pakistan's
complications arise from uncertainty over whether to expect a military
reprisal. While perils of a cross-LoC operation going awry with casualties or a
`Black Hawk Down' situation held back his predecessors, Modi decided to work
with the probabilities offered by the Army .
The
calculus having been reset, Pakistan's leadership may still find the pressure
to act difficult to resist. But almost any course of action is only likely to
take the gaze -and sympathy -of most nations away from Kashmir.
Having
egged on stone-pelters in the Valley and gone the whole hog at the UN, this is
a bitter pill to swallow.
(TOI)
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