Mumbai: Amidst Tragedy, The (British) Empire Lives

I know that some British folks are still nostalgic about Empire but, as a reader from New Zealand notes, "How tacky that The Times of London still calls it Bombay."

To be fair --- kind of --- The Times is caught up in post-imperial schizophrenia. Many of its articles use "Mumbai"; however, other reporters are still working with Retro Empire. Jeremy Page and Rhys Blakely top the list today with a double-header: they have a lead story that "relations between India and Pakistan were on a knife edge today as Indian authorities combed through the wreckage of last week's attacks on Bombay" and a feature on the re-opening of the Leopold Cafe "just 24 hours after the deadly terror strikes on Bombay finally ended". (Correction: In a superlative effort, Blakely took first place with a third story on "Bombay's poorly-equipped police force".)

Still, for intrepid linkage of the glorious (British) past with the dangerous present, The Times isn't a patch on its competitor, The Daily Telegraph. The harrumphing paper for Colonel Blimps everywhere sums it up in the headline of an opinion piece today:

Let Bombay remind us: they haven't gone away

Today's Stories Behind the Chatter: India, Iraq, and Iran

INDIA: HOLDING BREATH AND CROSSING FINGERS

US intelligence officials are letting it be known that evidence is pointing to the responsibility of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group formed to pursue the Pakistani cause in Kashmir, for the attack. This assessment is in line with that being put out by Indian officials.

This, of course, ratchets up the temperature in relations between India and Pakistan. The Pakistani Government made clear on Saturday that it had no hand in the Mumbai assault, as President Zardari said, "My heart bleeds for India." Indian suspicions of involvement by the Pakistani military and/or intelligence services continue, however, and Pakistan has indicated that it will move forces towards the border. Islamabad also withdrew the offer to send the Pakistani head of intelligence to assist with the investigation, after opposition party protests, although "a lower-level intelligence official would go to India...at an undetermined time in the future".

On the comment front, The Observer of London, which used to be a paper of editorial sense and dignity, dismisses local and regional issues to proclaim the fight for "democracy" against "jihadists". Juan Cole's heart-felt plea to India not to repeat the mistakes of the Bush Administration, while still caught up in the context of 9/11 and the War on Terror, is far more valuable reading.

IRAQ: THE MANOEUVRES BEGIN ON THE STATUS OF FORCES AGREEMENT

While the editors of The Washington Post indulge in fatuous back-slapping (the "its success in greatly reducing violence around Iraq", "the new democratic system is gaining its footing", "the Bush administration worked patiently and tirelessly to negotiate the new agreement") and Thomas Friedman reduces the country to "moderate Iraqi Sunnis against Al Qaeda and Iraqi Shiites against pro-Iranian extremists", Sudarsan Raghavan and Saad Sarhan offer one story of note:

Iraq's preeminent Shiite spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has expressed concern about the country's security agreement with the United States, saying it gives the Americans the upper hand and does not do enough to protect Iraqi sovereignty.

Meanwhile, a rocket fired into the Green Zone in Baghdad, landing near the United Nations compound, killed two and wounded 15 others.

LAYING OUT THE "CORRECT" IRAN NARRATIVE

In the category of "I say it, therefore it must be true", David Ignatius in The Washington Post:

Iran moves closer every day to becoming a nuclear-weapons power. It views America as an aggressive adversary that wants regime change, no matter what Washington says. Dialogue is worth a try, but Obama and his advisers should start thinking about what they will do if negotiations fail.

The Security Myth

In response to Mike’s post, why does Mumbai make the threat from asymmetric attacks any greater than it already is? It has always been there and it always will be unless we choose to live in a complete police state.

Take the case of the airports--because of the attack at Glasgow you now can't drive up to a terminal to drop a passenger off or pick someone up. Yet, there's absolutely nothing to stop someone from walking in with a backup containing an explosive and either leaving it in the terminal or detonating it amongst the passengers lined up to go through security. It's a "soft target." Now airports could institute a measure requiring everyone entering the terminal to be searched but then someone could blow themselves up in the parking lot so that would require a perimeter around the airport with every car being searched but then someone could blow them self up at the checkpoint .... and on .... and on. The only real solution would be to shut down air travel. So society wide there is an illusion of security created by the state to encourage people to go about their daily lives but in reality there is little that could be done to stop a determined terrorist. It’s about containment, not elimination, a point I make in the conclusion to my  book (gratuitous plug).

By the way, for an interesting examination of the faults with U.S. airport security see this from the current issue of The Atlantic.

Mumbai Speculation of the Day

Apologies for going on about The Times of London and their defence correspondent, Michael Evans, but this latest effort at analysis is fully deserving of scorn:

Focus on Westerners suggests al-Qaeda was pulling strings

Shocking as Wednesday nights attacks on Bombay may have been, they were not unprecedented in their audacity or tactics and may have been masterminded by a familiar enemy.

A terrorist group with training camps in Pakistan and strong ties with al-Qaeda as well as a history of mounting attacks in India yesterday became the chief suspect behind the atrocities.

Intelligence and security officials were cautious about making early conclusions but admitted that the scale of the attacks and the planning pointed to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a terrorist group with a long record of violent extremism and previous connections to the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

Lashkar-e-Taiba is definitely not a group whose strings are pulled by Al Qa'eda. It has its own political agenda, elements of which may overlap with the agenda of Osama Bin Laden and Co. but most of which is driven by Pakistani and regional dimensions, in particular the dispute over Kashmir.

Michael Evans and associates are making the perfect storm of terrorism. Lashkar-e-Taiba is tied to both Al Qa'eda and Pakistani intelligence services. And "while planning for Wednesdays attack probably took place in Pakistan, the plotters probably used a local group in Bombay to execute it. Suspicion has fallen on the Indian Mujahidin as that partner."

So what's wrong with this? With the widest possible net to bring in all bad guys, inside and outside of Governments, this type of analysis has little chance of getting to grips with specific local and regional issues and complexities behind these attacks. Evans and Co. trumpet, "Some analysts suggest that Pakistani militant groups have forged closer ties with al-Qaeda because of the continuing fighting with Pakistans Army in the northern tribal areas."

Maybe, just maybe, instead of highlighting "al-Qaeda", the Times correspondents might dwell on the last part of that sentence --- "the continuing fighting with Pakistans Army in the northern tribal areas".

More Questions from Mumbai

There is still isolated fighting in Mumbai. Headline drama has come from the storming of a Jewish cultural centre by Indian commandos, while The Times of India reports that there is still firing at the old section of the Taj Hotel, with at least one assailant possibly holding two more hostages.

The immediate conflict, however, is over, leaving at least 125 dead. Amidst the tragedy and rather empty blustering from British papers of standing side-by-side with India, the question inevitably turns into, "Who and why?"

Almost everything I have read is uncertain speculation. The initial easy response of "Al Qa'eda" has been joined by consideration of Pakistani groups, either supported by factions of the Government or independent of it. The latest wave of possibility, based on reports that some of the assailants spoke Hindi, is that this might be an Indian militant group.

We don't know. And I don't think that the intelligence services --- in India, in Pakistan (unless they indeed are linked to the assailants), in Britain, in the US --- know. All of this pondering is understandable, but at this point it just heightens fear without any sense of resolution.

It would be so much easier if Al Qa'eda had claimed responsibility, as in Michael Evans' masterpiece of irrelevance in The Times --- based on casual chat with "British intelligence sources" --- that Al Qa'eda "might be plotting an attack 'to grab the headlines' before Mr Obama takes over in the White House on January 20". This would have given us the best villain while absolving others (e.g. Pakistani authorities) and ignoring the complexities raised by yet others (Pakistani groups who are not part of Al Qa'eda's master plan).

A media incident this morning illustrates the point too painfully. BBC Radio 4's flagship programme Today has just wet itself with panic after the former head of India's intelligence services none-too-subtly suggested that the attackers are supported by the Pakistani intelligence services and military, acting independently or in defiance of the Zardari Government.

The host immediately went to the BBC's security correspondent to throw cold water on this. Gorden Corera assured everyone that the British Government's counsel was not to rush to judgement. Understandable, I think, given that Foreign Secretary David Miliband was just in Islamabad and proclaiming total confidence in his ally Prime Minister Zardari.

We do not know. But if anyone wants something for consideration, here goes:

Just as the instability in Pakistan feeds from and contributes to the ongoing instability in Afghanistan, so it may be the case that instability in Pakistan --- a central Government which is far from strong, which is being undermined by the situation in the Northwest Frontier, and which now be fragmented --- is contributing to the dramatic instability of the last 48 hours.

Whether that continues is, for me, the important issue. And it is far more important than the inconvenience, offered in the analysis offered by The New York Times this morning, that it "will make the agenda of the new American administration harder".