Great article indeed. Needs to be spread far and wide
A view is beginning to crystallise that the way to political settlement and stability in Afghanistan and the amelioration of the fundamentalist and terrorist threats to the West, could be facilitated by persuading India to become invisible in Afghanistan and resolve the Kashmir issue to Pakistan’s satisfaction (for anything less would hardly make a difference). Taken to its logical conclusion, India may have to cut itself into smaller pieces so that Pakistan feels safe! What makes India feel safe or unsafe, and that India, too, may have legitimate security concerns, does not seem to matter.
A typical example is the latest issue of The Economist (May 21, 2011) which has the header item, “The world’s most dangerous border.” Remember how during his visit to India in March 2000, President Clinton had used a similar doomsday description of the India-Pakistan border? This formulation is a pernicious one, because its spreads the blame even-handedly on both sides, rather than acknowledge the obvious source of the threat itself. The Economist says, with categorical certitude, that the Americans have made a mistake, “to see Pakistan in the context of the fighting on its north-west frontier, and thus to ignore the source of most of the country’s problems, including terrorism: the troubled state of relations to the East”. Please note the telling phrase “including terrorism”. The article makes another bizarre deduction: “If Pakistan’s world view were not distorted by India, it might be able to see straight on terror”. Really? The Economist’s solution? America should lean on India to “show restraint in and flexibility on Kashmir.”
What a far distance we have travelled, since 9/11 brought a long overdue clarity on the nature of terrorism as an unmitigated evil. What The Economist is suggesting is that we reward Pakistan’s use of cross-border terrorism as an instrument of state policy, rather than make it abundantly clear that terrorists and states that provide safe haven to terrorists risk being drummed out of respectable company and be put on ice as a rogue state. Instead of using “extra clout” on India to make concessions to Pakistan, should not the “extra clout” acquired as a result of the OBL affair be used with Islamabad to compel a change in its behaviour?
But several things strike me from this article.
Long before 9-11 the view that Pakistan had managed to spread (by being a GUBO ally in the cold war) is that the problems of this world included India being India - which was defined as a bigoted defunct civilization and a basket case nation. No blame for wars, proliferation or terrorism could be laid at Pakistan's door as long as this India problem existed.
After 9-11, culminating with bin Laden's killing are inexorably causing the finger of guilt to point where it should have been pointing in the first place, that is Pakistan.
And what is Pakistan telling the west? They are saying, "
Its all because of India. Solve India for us. Break off pieces of India and give it to us and we will become normal"
If anyone in power in the west believes this it only means that they have hit a brick wall with Pakistan and are unable to do anything further with Pakistan and are clutching at straws and considering other outside possibilities - like putting pressure on India - hoping that their problem with Pakistan will magically get solved.
I just wonder how much longer it will take for the west to find out that putting pressure on India is not going to solve the problem. But in some ways I welcome the development. I want countries to ask India to do something for Pakistan. I want Pakistan to respond with joy at all the foreign support they are getting. That should help to strengthen Indian resolve and political support and let us know who is who in the "
comity comedy of nations" is willing to stand on our side.
And fuk Pakistan. May Allah take over Pakistan with the help of his most loyal servants.