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India-Pakistan
Behind the Indian Embassy Bombing
2008-08-02
"You would think that the Bush administration would be coaching the Karzai government not to antagonize Pakistan unnecessarily by cozying up to India."

By Robert D. Kaplan

GWADAR, PAKISTAN--According to U.S. intelligence sources, Pakistan's intelligence service provided support to pro-Taliban insurgents responsible for the July 7 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, which killed more than 40 people. Shocking though Pakistani involvement may seem to some, it is thoroughly predictable, given the worldview and interests of Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Unless we address what's angering the ISI, we won't be able to stabilize Afghanistan or capture al-Qaeda leaders inside its borders.
Posted by:john frum

#4  One of the former ISI chiefs has just said that the Taliban and Al Qaeda will be needed to defend Pakistan.
This is part of their strategic depth doctrine.
Posted by: john frum   2008-08-02 17:42  

#3  After their AQ buddies blew up NYNY its game over.
They need to understand GAME OVER! FIN!
DONE.
ITS OUR WAY OR THE HIGHWAY!
TARGET ISLAMABAD!
Posted by: 3dc   2008-08-02 17:36  

#2  Note what the Pak Newspaper Editor Ejaz Haidar has written today

So yes, Pakistan has had links with the Taliban and other such groups and still does. But anyone who knows what it means to fight an irregular war against a protean enemy and in an environment full of interested actors also knows that nothing can be gained without such linkages
...
India should remember that it cannot stay wedded on the surface to the normalisation process but decide to keep Pakistan's western borders simmering. New Delhi hopes to keep the Pakistan army stuck there and force Islamabad through international pressure and internal security threats to lose its (Pakistan's) bargaining edge against India over time.


They will never give up their bargaining edge (the irregular war). The jihaids are their tool. This is what PM ZA Bhutto famously referred to as a thousand year war

To do that is to accept that Pakistan will never be the equal of India, that it loses the ability to balkanize India, to break it into pieces so that no remnant is more powerful than Pakistan.

Muslim martial superiority is part of the foundation myth of Pakistan. Muslims ruled the subcontinent and should do so again.

If this is not the case, then what was partition all about? They might as well have accepted Mahatma Gandhi's vision of a united India.

The late Pak dictator Zia Ul Haq said that "if not Islamization, then we might as well rejoin mother India"
Posted by: john frum   2008-08-02 13:11  

#1  "You would think that the Bush administration would be coaching the Karzai government not to antagonize Pakistan unnecessarily by cozying up to India."

Actually I would think that. It took me a long time to realize how freaked out the Paks are over India, and rightfully so. The U.S. and Wakiland could put a squeeze-play on the Taliwhackers, but not if they get a whiff of India hanging around.
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2008-08-02 12:46  

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