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US betrays pro-Pak tilt

The United States displayed a distinct sympathy for Pakistan despite its nuclear tests on Thursday, with everyone from President Clinton and White House spokesman Michael McCurry to former secretary of state Henry Kissinger expressing an understanding of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief's dilemma.

While Clinton was unequivocal in announcing that he would have to impose sanctions against Pakistan, he indicated he understood the pressure the Pakistan premier was under to conduct nuclear tests. "While it is true that Pakistan was not the first to test nuclear weapons in the region, two wrongs don't make a right," he said.

During his press briefing on Thursday McCurry said the president "certainly understands the arguments the prime minister (Sharief) made. He understands the unique regional and domestic pressures that the prime minister felt he faced."

"In the very direct conversations we have had government to government, we've made it clear that we understand the security threat that Pakistan and its people would face because of the decision by the Government of India to test. We understood that both in terms of conventional arms and in terms of security assurances, the government of Pakistan would need to be able to say to its people that they had, if refrained from testing, taken steps to compensate for what had been done by the Government of India," McCurry said.

The role of China, which has been largely perceived as the primary provider of Pakistan's nuclear muscle, has also been glossed over in the current crisis. In his address to the nation after the tests, Sharief thanked China for its help, without specifying its nature. China is also believed to have delayed the UN Security Council's statement condemning the Pakistani test over an attempt to include language critical of India.

McCurry maintained the known US position on the Pakistan-China axis. In reply to a reporter's question, he said there was no "sanctionable" evidence of Chinese involvement in the Pakistani nuclear programme. Soon after Pakistan test-fired the Ghauri missile, which is believed to be the immediate provocation for the Indian nuclear tests, Washington cleared China of any involvement and blamed a North Korean agency instead.

Clinton, who faces criticism at home for being soft on China allegedly because of Chinese contribution to his re-election campaign, has turned down demands to cancel his proposed visit to Beijing next month, claiming that the strategy of US "engagement" in China, initiated by Kissinger during the Nixon presidency, is working.

Kissinger, a long-time Pakistan supporter, said the US should have a more "mature reaction" to the Pakistani tests. "We could have given Pakistan a nuclear guarantee," he said, in order to avoid Islamabad from going ahead with its nuclear tests.

Saying it would take an "act of extreme irritation" for India and Pakistan to actually use their nuclear weapons against each other, Kissinger said there was nothing the US could have done to prevent the Pakistani tests, given the domestic pressure on Sharief to test.

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