Modi’s operandi

 Islamabad

Six months into Imran Khan’s premiership and the new Pakistan prime minister has been plunged into his first major foreign crisis. Last week, a suicide bomber attacked Indian soldiers in Kashmir, killing more than 40 paramilitary troops. Simultaneously, another suicide attack massacred 27 members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard near the Pakistani border of Iran’s troubled Sistan and Baluchestan Province. Khan has spent the early months of his premiership attempting to strengthen links with neighbours. He stretched out the hand of friendship to India. He opened the Kartarpur corridor to allow the visa-free passage of Sikh pilgrims. He has warmed up Pakistan’s old alliance with Iran, while working hard to flatter her bitter enemy Saudi Arabia. In a series of whistle-stop tours of the Gulf, he has mended relations with the UAE and even Qatar — a feat pulled off without offending the Saudis. No visits, meanwhile, to Washington or to European capitals. Until last week the strategy was working. Khan is Pakistan’s most charismatic and outward-looking leader since Zulfikar Ali Bhutto half a century ago appeared to be on the verge of ending his country’s regional isolation and advancing Pakistan’s long-standing dream of becoming a leader of the world’s Muslim nations. And now these two incidents occur within a day of each other. Iran has pointed the finger at Pakistan for harbouring terrorist groups. And so has the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, who says he has ‘incontrovertible evidence’ of Pakistani involvement in the terror attack. Modi says that he plans to ‘completely isolate’ his northern neighbour and has already ended Pakistan’s ‘Most Favoured Nation’ trading status. Further reprisals are likely. Meanwhile, Pakistan denies any involvement in the suicide attack, reportedly carried out by Adil Dar, a young man from Indian-administered Kashmir. Modi’s argument is strengthened by the fact that Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a terror group based in the south Punjab, instantly claimed responsibility.