Israel's early Monday morning assassination of the wheelchair-bound cleric, Sheikh Yassin of Hamas, created shockwaves through the region and sent the Bush administration running for cover to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Rice appeared on TV and pronounced, We Did Not Know. Suffice to say, few believed her, especially since Washington, a year on, still hasn’t found one weapon of mass destruction in Iraq. Ironically, India and Israel began another round of their joint working group on counter-terrorism in Jerusalem on Tuesday, under the lengthening shadow of the Yassin murder next door in Gaza. It is this eye-for-an-eye policy that leaves the world blind and which Israel’s Ariel Sharon employs so ruthlessly, that New Delhi seems hardly comfortable with. While the government is determined to expand its engagement with Israel, it cannot agree with its refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians. Sharon’s determination to now build a wall which eats up large territories in the West Bank that belong to a future Palestinian state, flies in the face of world opinion. New Delhi points out that the Indian state, in however ham-handed fashion, has never shut the door to insurgent groups, whether Naga or Kashmiri. Certainly, though, there’s one aspect of the counter-terrorism talks that keenly interests New Delhi, that which is woven around the ‘‘theory of incitement’’ to terrorism. For example, recorded evidence such as tapes, are still not admissible in a court of law in India. If and when that changes, POTA could be in for a major overhaul.Pak and its sisterhoodNew Delhi is, meanwhile, still bristling with the snub over the US refusal to take it into confidence on naming Pakistan as a ‘‘major non-NATO ally’’. That India and Pakistan take turns to crib to Washington is well-known, even if New Delhi occasionally protests and alternatively flaunts the ‘‘hyphen/ dehyphenated status’’ with Islamabad, respectively. For example when India and the US announced their strategic partnership in January, which included a major intention to transfer high-technology, Pakistan protested to America. How could you be doing this with India, when WE are your key allies against terror, it exclaimed.The blackmail paid off. Messrs Colin Powell, the all-powerful Secretary of State, was persuaded by Mesdames Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca and US Ambassador to Pakistan Nancy Powell, that Washington needed to give a few toys to the Pakistan military if it wanted to exercise influence over it. The sisterhood is said to have pointed out that for the longest time and because of sundry amendments that went by the name of Pressler, Glenn, etc, the Pakistani Army wasn’t connected with the latest thinking in the western world. Moreover, throwing some money at Rawalpindi might also help in catching a few Al-Qaeda. Two days after Powell flew out of Islamabad, the Pakistanis launched their biggest operation in the Pak-Afghan frontier, going where no soldier had been in at least a hundred years.The old order changethApril is turning out to be the cruellest month for the IFS, as a number of top-class officers such as Ronen Sen (in London) finally call it a day. In the same month, Savitri Kunadi is supposed to quit Paris and Lalit Mansingh leave Washington. That’s when the chain — current incumbent in Spain Dilip Lahiri takes over Paris, current incumbent in Brussels P K Singh takes over Spain and Secretary in Delhi R M Abhyankar takes over Brussels — is also expected to grind into place. After the restructuring within the MEA last month — which witnessed the bifurcation of several desks such as ‘‘Europe’’ and ‘‘Africa’’ and the merging of others to create new empires such as ‘‘Eurasia’’ — the overhaul is certainly being keenly watched. In fact, Foreign Secretary Shashank will kick off the competition for the top job when he retires in July, after having met his counterpart in Pakistan for a first dialogue round.Still, the changing of the order will have to wait for a new government in place by May-end before political and diplomatic appointments are made in all the above key places. Watch out also for Vivek Katju, who’s finished his term in Kabul and Nirupam Sen, who’s finishing his term in Colombo. And then, of course, there’s former foreign secretary K. Raghunath, who’s giving up Moscow around August.
