The people of Pakistan are not thrilled but certainly pleased at President-elect Barack Obama's expressed interest in 'facilitating' the solution of Kashmir problem. He appears to believe that if the Kashmir issue is resolved Pakistan would "stay focused, not on India, but on the situation with the militants".
The United States expects from Islamabad its unstinted support in the 'war on terror' - that it complains is not available and, therefore, it keeps demanding "do more". There is also a perception among the US military, circles that Pakistan is reluctant to commit its regular troops to fighting the militants in the restive north-west because they are deployed on the border with India.
He has sounded out former president Bill Clinton, who he thinks has better understanding of the problems besetting South Asian states, to act as his special envoy on Jammu and Kashmir. "Might not be a bad (idea). I actually talked to Bill, I talked to President Clinton about this when we had lunch" at Harlem in New York recently.
President Clinton's role in averting a war between Pakistan in the wake of Kargil crisis and his personal relationship with some South Asian leaders is well known. Facing a wider conflict with India over the messy Kargil adventure, the then military top brass, headed by General Pervez Musharraf, had dispatched the then prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, post haste to seek America's intercession.
It was 4th of July, a national holiday in Washington, but President Clinton obliged the Pakistani premier and secured Indian agreement to defuse the crisis by talking to Atal Behari Vajpayee. So far there is nothing official about Obama's so-called proposal to appoint former president Bill Clinton as special envoy but what is important is that America's new leader sees Kashmir as a problem.
This lends an international dimension to the problem, a development that must have caused serious concern in New Delhi as it runs counter to India's standard position that Kashmir is a bilateral issue between Pakistan and India. Much to the chagrin of India, Obama's remarks were almost coincidental to the debate in the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly on the "right of peoples' to self-determination", where Pakistan's Permanent Representative, Hussain A. Haroon, provoked Indian ire, by highlighting the growing incidence of brutalities perpetrated by occupying Indian forces on Kashmiri protestors.
On the same day, in response to a reporter's question, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed his readiness to be of help in resolving the Kashmir dispute "if India and Pakistan agreed to his role". One swallow doesn't make a summer but the very fact that the newcomer to the White House thinks Kashmir as a problem that needs to be resolved, possibly through engagement of the United States is what pleases Pakistanis.
Whatever the context of Barack Obama's remarks he is absolutely right that the Kashmir issue must be resolved. The fact is that the development and prosperity of over a billion people in South Asia is hostage to this lingering problem. It precipitated three conventional wars between Pakistan and India and threatens a possible nuclear conflict in future.
Even more critical is the need to urgently rescue the people of Indian occupied Kashmir from their dire plight at the hands of the India troops. It would be unfair to equate their freedom struggle with terrorism and extremism of the brand raging elsewhere in the region. Kashmiris, men, women and children, battling the occupation force on the streets of Srinagar and other cities - do they look like terrorists?
They are freedom fighters and demand their right of self-determination. Thanks to the Composite Dialogue some progress has been made in the Pak-India bilateral relationship but without Kashmiris joining this process, the dispute will not be resolved. It is not for nothing that the first hailer of Obama's comment on Kashmir came from the Kashmiris leaders in the United States.
That should encourage the US administration, to be installed on January 20, 2009, to move forward on this perception and bring American diplomacy into full play for a peaceful and lasting solution of the Kashmir dispute. That is the kind of 'change' that people in the world expect of President-elect Barack Obama.