So where do we go from here? How do we deal with our Pakistan problem? The short answer to that question is,nobody knows. We can assert,as our Ministers of Defence and External Affairs do ad nauseam these days,that the only way for relations to improve is for Pakistan to hand over the men responsible for what happened in Mumbai but we know this is not going to happen. That they have finally accepted Ajmal Kasab as one of their own is amazing enough since it amounts to admitting that there is proof of Pakistani involvement. We know that there is more than enough proof.
We know that the Lashkar-e-Toiba is virtually a division of the Pakistani Army and that the terrorists who came to Mumbai could only have done what they did if they had the training of military commandos. We know who trained them and what we did not know Kasab has told us. We know that the reason why Mumbai was attacked was because the Pakistani Army is desperate to find a reason to move troops from the Western border to the East without the Americans charging them with reneging on their promise to eliminate Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Is this possible? No. Our covert agencies are rusty and out of practice. So then? Can we go to war? Maybe. But,it is no solution because all that will happen is that the jihadis will fight alongside the Pakistani Army and we will give ourselves a bad name with the new American President who we hope will come up with a policy in South Asia that is better than the one Bush followed. We need Barack Obama to realise that our interests are the same when it comes to Pakistan. As is our problem.
The United States is eager to keep Pakistan from becoming a failed nuclear state and so are we. The last thing we want is for Pakistan to start coming apart because it would bring a swift end to our dream of becoming a developed country by the middle of this century. We have our own Muslim problem and we will not get any closer to dealing with it if armies of crazed religious fanatics start pouring across our borders to save Islam. If Pakistan shows signs of falling to pieces it would be in our interest to help it stay together. The Talibanisation that creeps slowly towards Islamabad from the West is as much a danger to us as it is to Pakistan but what are we to do about it?
When a civilian government came to power a year ago after Benazir Bhuttos horrible murder,there was a small hope of renewal and change. That hope has died because the attack on Mumbai made it abundantly clear that Asif Ali Zardari has about as much power as the Mayor of Mumbai. The men who control Pakistan are the men who control the army and the ISI and there does not seem to be any possibility of us being able to persuade them to start behaving. Only the United States can do this because it is the United States that pays Pakistans bills. Meanwhile,let us take comfort from what Secretary of State,Richard Boucher,said in Delhi last week: I would say the United States and India are both determined to make sure we find out who did this,how it was done and how to make sure it does not happen again. Were determined to see this threatto Indians,Americans,the whole world,including Pakistanof terrorism eliminated.
