Sunday, November 29, 2009

Is Pak instability such a bad thing for India?

The average Indo-Pak analyst tends to paint Pak instability as a bad outcome for India. Could it actually be a blessing in disguise for India? Practically speaking, we will never resolve the border dispute as long as there is a democratically elected government in Pakistan. Notwithstanding all its talk about democracy, US really misses Prez Mush at the helm who could be remote controlled from the West Wing. India cannot force anything down the sore Pakistani throat either, specially with many in the Pakistani establishment itching to play with the nuclear button.

However, if Taliban becomes a real threat to the democratically elected (if you can call it that) government, so much so that the Zardari-Gilani combine as well as US fear that the nuclear weapons are at arms length of the Taliban, US can be convinced that an air strike at the nuclear facilities is in the best interest of everyone. India may not even need to play a part in this process, though I am sure we will throw a good measure of rhetoric, as always.

With no nuclear deterrent, Pakistan is on the back foot on any future negotiation, including Kashmir. Foreign Minister Mehmood Qureshi and his clan can save their repartees for a private evening filled with US-funded Jack Daniels. What couldn't be accomplished in the past 60 years, could be facilitated by Taliban, probably inadvertently (although a conspiracy theorist would claim India's hand cannot be ruled out). US can then go about reinstalling a Karzai-like apparatus that is engrossed in its internal problems and we can move on from Af-Pak (which, by the way, always reminds me of Aflac!!) to our own internal problems.

Is this really such a bad outcome?

4 comments:

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Anonymous said...

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!

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