Word: zardari
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Zardari, Benazir Bhutto's widower, realizes that India's enemies in Pakistan are also his own: the very forces of Islamist extremism responsible for his wife's assassination were also behind the bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel in September. The militancy once sponsored by the Pakistani military as a foreign policy tool now threatens to abort Pakistan's sputtering democracy. There has never been a stronger case for firm and united action by the governments of both India and Pakistan to cauterize the cancer in their midst...
...Such an outcome is not as implausible as it sounds. Rarely has a Pakistani government been more inclined to pursue peace with India. Zardari has been pushing for greatly expanded trade and commercial links and the liberalization of the restrictive visa regime between the two countries. Indeed, his Foreign Minister was in New Delhi for talks on these issues when the terrorist assault occurred. Zardari had also begun winding down his government's official support for Kashmiri militancy and had announced the disbanding of the ISI's political wing. When he went so far as to propose a "no first...
...Zardari, for example, stated on Nov. 28 that Pakistan "will cooperate with India in exposing and apprehending the culprits and masterminds" behind the attacks. But this is not an objective unanimously shared in Islamabad. The terrorists and their patrons clearly wish to derail any moves in the direction of harmony between the two countries, which would thwart their destructive Islamist agenda. They enjoy the sympathy of elements in the military, whose disproportionate share of the country's national budget would be threatened by peace with India. And the country's civilian government dares not cross the red lines drawn...
...Ironically, Zardari had proved to be a useful ally of the U.S.; in addition to lowering the temperature with India, he was cooperating tacitly with Predator strikes against the Islamic extremists in the Afghan borderlands, much to the resentment of pro-Islamist elements in his military. This cooperation has now been jeopardized by the assault on Mumbai. As tensions with India ratchet up, the hard-liners in Islamabad's army headquarters will have the justification they need to jettison a policy they dislike and move their forces away from the border with Afghanistan, where the U.S. wants them...
...Delhi can do is demand that the well-intentioned but ineffective government in Islamabad crack down on terrorist groups, dismantle their camps, freeze their bank accounts and arrest and prosecute their leaders. There is little appetite in Pakistan for such action. And the fear remains that expecting Zardari to fulfill even India's minimal demands might be asking him to sign his own death warrant...