WSJ HITS OUT AT PAKISTAN

Pak can not take India’s restraint granted, says journal

Washington, Sept. 28: Pakistan cannot take India’s policy of strategic restraint for granted for too long and if Islamabad rejects Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s offer of cooperation, it will become part of a case for making the country a “pariah nation”, a US daily has claimed.

“Modi is practicing restraint for now, but Islamabad can’t rely on that continuing. Modi’s offer of cooperation, if rejected, will become part of a case for making Pakistan even more of a pariah nation than it already is,” The Wall Street Journal said in an opinion piece.

“If the (Pakistani) military continues to send arms and fighters across the border, the Indian Prime Minister will have a strong justification to take action,” it warned.

The Wall Street Journal said India has always enjoyed the moral high ground on the terrorism issue, but past Congress and BJP governments lacked the courage to assert it forthrightly.

That led to a policy of “strategic restraint”, which meant that Pakistan would never be held accountable for its terrorist proxies, no matter how heinous their attacks, it noted.

Praising Modi for deciding against taking any military action, the daily said even as he walked back threats of military action, he replaced them with a pledge to isolate Pakistan internationally if the military doesn’t stop supporting terrorist groups.

He is considering the cancellation of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, which protects Pakistan’s rights to the Indus water.

In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs, Sameer Lalwani, deputy director of the Stimson Center’s South Asia programme, said in the wake of the Uri attack, the understandable anger and frustration of Indian policymakers is building momentum for major military action. — PTI