alexanderthegreat
Overlord v2.0
Finally, pakistan has responded officially to the dossier full of evidence it had recieved from India. This is the report:-
Pak bows to coercive diplomacy, accepts blame.
source:*ibnlive.in.com/news/pak-bows-to-coercive-diplomacy-accepts-blame/85210-3.html
For the first time in history a serving Pakistani official has publicly acknowledged that a foreign terror plot was hatched on Pakistani soil, two-and-a-half months after the Mumbai attacks in which 179 were killed.
Pakistan Interior Minister Rahman Malik admitted on Thursday that the conspiracy to attack Mumbai took place on Pakistani soil and that Pakistanis carried it out. Pakistan says it has filed an FIR against nine persons, including Ajmal Amir Kasab and that six have been arrested. Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) chief Zaki-ur Rahaman Lakhvi is under investigation. Another Lashkar operative Zarar Shah has been located. The mastermind of the attack, Pakistan says, was Hamad Amin Sadiq and he has been arrested.
The question that was being asked on CNN-IBN's Face The Nation was: Pakistan accepts charges: Has India's coercive diplomacy worked?
To try and answer the question on the panel of experts were Senior Correspondent The Independent, Omar Waraich; former Pakistan and Afghanistan analyst at the Bureau of Intelligence Research at the US Department of State, Dr Marvin G Weinbaum; Defence Analyst Rear-Admiral (Retd) Raja Menon; Editorial Advisor Times of India, Gautam Adhikari.
The initial results of the SMS/Web Poll showed 83 per cent agreed that India's coercive diplomacy worked while 17 per cent disagreed.
Triumph of coercive diplomacy?
Raja Menon kick-started the debate by saying that India did not impose any bilateral clause on Pakistan, India did not really threaten Pakistan in any way. He said being a skeptic, he believed that the real masterminds were still not going to be brought to book.
Gautam Adhikari begged to differ saying that finally Pakistan had reached out to the world - call it bending under US pressure if you must - but it has acted and India must appreciate this gesture.
"We have to also appreciate what Pakistan has been forced to do. It was international coercive diplomacy which forced Pakistan to accept the charges. The fact that it has happened for the very first time, it means someone has really put some pressure behind the scenes. I am not surprised that it happened on the heels on Richard Holbrookes's presence in Islamabad," he stated.
He added that the US has certain leverage over Pakistan and they threatened to withdraw the aid they were giving that country.
Omar Waraich said such a confession by Pakistan would have domestic repercussions but that no one would be able to determine what those were just right now. "I feel that a number of people will be very relieved that Pakistan's image would have improved as a result of this. No longer will they be subject to ridicule for making contradictory and outlandish claims. The government of Pakistan will also now have to act very carefully to deal with terror groups," he stated.