(IPS)analysis A major casualty in the aftermath of the Sept 11 attacks in the United States is Pakistan's Afghan policy, under which Islamabad sought support for the Taliban as a 'friendly' government that covered its western flank given the threat from the adversary to its east, India.

In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) recently, President Pervez Musharraf conceded that the ''Taliban's days are numbered''. He added that ''confrontation is likely after the Taliban's refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden to the United States'', referring to Pakistan's policy toward the Taliban in the past tense.

Ironies abound for the United States and Pakistan as they try to cover their tracks while recovering from the consequences of policies they pushed and promoted in the past.

The biggest irony is that Pakistan's backing of the Taliban, who first took Kandahar in Nov 1994 and then Kabul in Sept 1996, was with the active connivance of the Clinton Administration, which concurred with Pakistan's policy because it saw Afghanistan as a pressure point on Iran.

At the time, it was radical Islamic policies emanating from Tehran that were viewed as the main threat to US interests in the region.

The United States changed its view of the Taliban only after Osama bin Laden landed in Afghanistan in 1996, and was provided a sanctuary by the Taliban.

In Aug 1998, the US launched cruise missile attacks on his hideouts in Afghanistan, two weeks after US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by terrorists.

Afghanistan apart, the Bush administration earlier on was reluctant to even remove nuclear-related sanctions against Pakistan concurrently with India.

But now Washington has promptly waived sanctions imposed under American law regarding democracy because President George W Bush, on Sept 24, cited this as being in US 'national security interests'.

Game plan

To a cynical Pakistani public used to policy U-turns by the US government - which used and then ditched Pakistan as it did during the first Afghanistan war in the 1980s - Washington's recent moves only show that all the sanctions it had previously imposed on Pakistan had nothing to do with principles either of nuclear or missile proliferation or of promoting democracy.

Instead, these were inextricably linked to politics and policies based on American interests.

It is rather late in the day for Pakistan to voice its fears regarding Afghanistan's future regime. Bush publicly sought ''the cooperation of citizens within Afghanistan who may be tired of having the Taliban in place'' - a clear reference to the post-Taliban coalition being cobbled by the United States.

On Oct 1, the former Afghan King Zahir Shah and the opposition Northern Alliance were reported to have forged an agreement for forming a transitional government in Afghanistan, post-Taliban, for a two-year period.

A peep into the American game plan for Afghanistan was provided in an article in 'The New York Times' on Sept 29: ''In Afghanistan, the United States military faces two of the most difficult tasks it has ever confronted. It must track down an enemy leader and his fellow terrorists on their home turf. And it must try to remove the foreign regime that shelters him.''

Pakistan needs to understand three realities in the present situation. First, the United Nations Security Council unanimous resolution 1373, passed on Sept 28, mandating the use of force against terrorism, can put Pakistan's Kashmir policy at risk, since at least one Kashmiri organisation, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, has already been banned by the US on Sept 25 for alleged links with Osama bin Laden.

All its bank accounts have been closed, an action followed by Pakistani banks as well.

An imaginative approach and deft diplomacy would be required to preserve important segments of Pakistan's position on disputed Kashmir, since its legitimacy is derived from United Nations resolutions seeking self-determination.

Sober elements

In a change of Western policy, Russia has already been rewarded for its support with a green light to crush Chechnya's resistance, and India is keen that the United States incorporate Kashmir in the 'campaign against terrorism'.

Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh had consultations in this regard in Washington on Oct 2 with his American counterpart, Colin Powell.

Second, Islamabad should no longer continue to be deluded regarding the post-Sept 11 implications for Pakistan's policy. The hard fact is that Pakistan's Afghan policy lies buried in the debris of the World Trade Centre.

Third, after the candid comments of Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi last week regarding the 'superiority of Western civilisation over the Islamic civilisation' and his optimism that the West will 'conquer' Islam just as it 'conquered communism', there should be little doubt about the targets in the campaign against terrorism.

This is mainly confined to Muslims, since terrorism by the Tamils, Irish Republican Army and the Basque separatists is excluded. There are also those in the West straining at the leash for what they want to see as a 'clash of civilisations'.

The United States, which is leading this coalition, needs to listen to saner and sober elements rather than be swayed by those who would like to convert a war against terrorism into a nation-destroying exercise, widening the chasm between the United States and the Muslim world.

Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, leader of the world's biggest Muslim state and the first to meet Bush after the carnage of Sept 11, urged him to ''pay attention to the feelings of the Islamic world as well as not mixing up terrorism with Islam''.