Pakistan and Palestine

investmenttool.com Opinion

After every terrorist attack on Israel, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat issued a condemnation of terror. Laced with references to the suffering that motivated the attack, the statement was usually followed by arrests. Remind you of the ongoing India-Pakistan situation? It should.

After the murderous attack on the Indian parliament, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf made a strong verbal condemnation. Some reports indicate that up to 2000 people were arrested in the weeks after the attack. Pakistan’s president did so because of the million or so Indian troops massed on the border and threatened to swarm across.

When the heat was supposedly off, Pakistan let every single detainee out of jail. Sound like the situation with Mr. Arafat? Yes it does. As a matter of fact, it would appear that Pakistan has taken a book out of the Palestinian Authority playbook.

India is fed up and ready to cross the border in retaliatory strikes. As a Jew with connections to Israel, I can hardly blame them. As an investor, I fear the prospect of such a conflict between two nuclear states.

The U.S. alliance with Pakistan is critical to the fight against bin Laden’s terrorists, many of which now reside in the wild west border region near Afghanistan, is very important to Mr. Bush. This might not be the best course of action.

Unless Mr. Musharraf locks up the terrorists in his country and tries those actually guilty of terrorism, he is no better than Mr. Arafat. It is unacceptable to resolve these kind of disputes with guns and suicide bombers. If the people of Kashmir really want to be part of Pakistan, they could use the same non-violent techniques that forced Britain to grant India independence.

The U.S. is going to be faced with a choice concerning Mr. Musharraf. They are going to have to issue an ultimatum as far as what he needs to do. It is going to have to back up that ultimatum with credible, painful consequences. If he does not meet this criteria it might be time to seriously back India.

It seems unthinkable, but India has an excellent air force, much more capable than neighbors, China and Pakistan. With U.S. assistance, they might be able to eliminate Pakistan’s nuclear capability. This would eliminate the threat of a militant Islamic regime taking over and loaning a bomb to bin Laden.

As crazy as it sounds, if war is averted, the weak Pakistani regime will continue to be a problem for the U.S. We are more than capable of taking out bin Laden’s remnants in the Afghan border region. If the Pakistani regime collapses, we are going to have to invade to secure their nuclear facilities anyway.

The point of this essay is not to advocate a U.S. or Indian war against Pakistan. It is to point out that Mr. Musharraf is acting more like an enemy (Arafat) than a friend.

Whether or not there is war with India, we are going to have to force this regime to act in a friendlier fashion, treat them as an enemy or face the consequences of inaction. All anyone who advocates inaction needs to do is visit lower Manhattan for a taste of that frightening result.

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Shmuel Protter
investmenttool.com

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