Bush in South Asia — Raising a political storm
Bush in South Asia — Raising a political storm
As the US President moved from Afghanistan to India and then Pakistan, he raised political storm clouds. If India was obsessed with the nuclear deal, Pakistan wanted similar treatment and Afghanistan worried about the resurgence of Taliban. G. PARTHASARATHY reviews the Bush tour.
Never before has the visit of an American President to South Asia created such a political storm as the recent visit of Mr George W. Bush to Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. India remained obsessed with whether or not the “nuclear deal” would move forward. Pakistan persisted with its insistence on the Americans blessing its quest for “parity” with India. Few people had, however, noticed the profound changes emerging in the American thinking on the reliability of Pakistan as a self-professed “ally” in the “war on terrorism".
By the time Mr Bush left for South Asia there was seething anger in the Pentagon about Pakistani assistance to the Taliban, which was re-emerging as a serious challenge to stability in Afghanistan. An emboldened Taliban, reinforced by Pakistani jihadis, operating out of secure hideouts in Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province, had mounted suicide attacks on American and Afghan forces. The Afghan President, Mr Hamid Karzai, visited Pakistan on February 16 and gave the President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, details of Taliban leaders residing in Pakistan and the confessions of 13 Pakistani terrorists arrested in Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, the Pakistan Government vehemently denied that any Taliban leaders were living in Pakistan.
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