In the Pakistan-US parleys this week, the main thrust of US side does not seem to have been what both sides had billed: the restoration of India-Pakistan dialogue and a measure of normalcy in their relationship.

This could not be the central issue they discussed, except peripherally for a nudge here or a slight push there because the normalisation process is already o­n between India and Pakistan and their dialogue's resumption is becoming likely.

It was India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who had preempted the US effort to be the agency through which a measure of normality would come about between these two old adversaries. Vajpayee offered virtually unconditional talks to Pakistan o­n Apr 18 from a public platform in Srinagar, in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

In this context, the visit to Afghanistan by US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, after coming to Pakistan and before going to India, gives an inkling that issues concerning Afghanistan must have figured in the bilateral business that was transacted in Islamabad.

Old conditions

Meantime, the old Indian conditions for negotiations have sneaked back, probably in response to the instant criticisms of hawkish elements in India. Up to a point, India's traditional stance of almost a decade was in fact inherent even in the unconditional offer of negotiations for starting a quest for friendship.

At some point, India's objection to Islamic insurgency in Kashmir was sure to figure in the talks. There is no way for India-Pakistan talks to ignore or skirt around what the Indians call their core issue: cross-border terrorism.

It is remarkable that Vajpayee, when offering his 'hand of friendship' and talks to Pakistan, forgot the de rigeur mantra of Indian stance about prior stoppage of cross-border terrorism. Pakistanis, for their part, did not mind the cacophony in India reiterating the old condition, and went right ahead making their own gestures in reply to Indian hints of relaxation in the punitive restraints they had imposed.

Old conditions are all there - yet they have not this time hindered initial progress from Pakistan side. Perhaps the two have undisclosed understandings.

It was obviously Vajpayee's coup. He stole the main purpose of the Armitage Mission and made it his own well before Armitage was to leave for the subcontinent. Why is anyone's guess.

Long-term purposes

Probably he wants the Indo-Pakistan negotiations to remain free of US good offices with their well-judged encouragement to o­ne side here andcaution to the other side there from time to time. Vajpayee seems to think that Iraq and Afghanistan wars forced him to try and keep the subcontinent's issues out of the United States' long-term purposes in Asia.

If Armitage did not like Vajpayee's jumping the gun, he has said little.Perhaps a clue may be read in Armitage's observation at the press conference in Islamabad: the current level of cross-border terrorism in Kashmir is less than what it was last year.

This appears directly aimed at New Delhi which has been saying the contrary. Was Armitage showing his displeasure? Maybe yes, maybe not; he might simply be stating a fact as the US administration knows it.

Anyhow, Pakistanis must have been pleased to hear that. Armitage's purpose could be to reassure Musharraf of Washington's continued esteem and support for him and his policies. Armitage's motive can o­nly be guessed at: he has to extract a lot of concessions and cooperation o­n Afghanistan, the specific and immediate American worry.

The United States had a whole range of business to be transacted with Pakistan vis-a-vis a new war against Karzai administration and Washington, a war said to have its sanctuaries in Pakistan.

The United States' relations with Pakistan are highly ambiguous. The Bush administration seems to love it. US media is wary of it and is frequently critical. The neoconservatives, whose ideas are said to the driving force behind today's US policies, are openly hostile to it. Why are they so critical of Pakistan?

There is a long list of Pakistan's 'wrongdoings', from the perspective of an unctuous and imperial United States out to vanquish evil and establish a new Holy Roman Empire.

High-profile game

Pakistan is seen as as the world headquarters of a new Islamic Revolution, typified by Taliban and presumably al-Qaeda also. Thousands of Islamic extremists are produced each year in its seminaries. It was the Taliban's sponsor who went o­n to rule Afghanistan. Pakistan thus tried to play a high-profile strategic but unfriendly game in Asia.

Then, it is not a democracy and is a nuclear power, perpetually at odds with India, making South Asia the most dangerous place o­n earth.

More to the point, Pakistan is the springboard from which a new guerrilla war is being launched against Karzai regime and the United States. Its leader is said to be engineer Gulbadin Hekmatyar who is somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan's Pashtun belt.

These hit-and run-attacks o­n US, international and the Karzai government's troops is deeply worrying Washington. They have to be stopped - and Pakistan may again be the key to it. To obtain greater cooperation from Pakistan could o­nly be Armitage's chief purpose.

This war has an ugly potential. It can become a general Pashtun revolt against the present dispensation in Afghanistan. Pashtuns find that they have no real representation in the Karzai regime.

Hekmatyar is a well connected leader. His supporters include Pakistan's religious party Jamaat-i-Islami and front organisations like Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, some of whose fighters might be switched from Kashmir to Afghanistan for the same kind of fighting. That will not do Washington any good.

The Pakistan government knows this US interest. It is also not really in a position to say no or to have another policy o­n Afghanistan.

It is sure to accede to new US demands for closer cooperation with US Special Forces, Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation in hunting down Islamic fighters in Pakistan's Pashtun belt, whether they go and fight in Afghanistan or Indian Kashmir.

But Islamabad is demanding a price. Reports are that Pakistan has asked for another US$1.8 billion in aid. It is fair to speculate that the United States will eventually come up with more aid for Pakistan. - IPS