The writing is on the wall for Pakistan!

Pakistan has been ‘calling the wolf’ for the past 60 years and that too quite successfully. Time seems to have run out on this silly ritual. Whenever the United States of America confronted Pakistan with a complaint they always pointed fingers at India and the so-called ‘Kashmir Dispute’. It has worked quite well for them all these years, of course with American connivance. Things have changed since 1998. India and Pakistan became declared nuclear powers and therefore a major concern for the ‘Western World’. Pakistan interpreted this paradigm shift as salvation from the ‘Big Wolf’ on their eastern front but India had other ideas!

The Indian government of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had a long-term strategy in mind. They had calculated the fall-out from the defiance of the western world in general and the United States in particular when the decision to go nuclear was made. As expected, India faced the full fury of a jilted Clinton administration and their lap-dogs around the world. The long and protracted negotiations between Strobe Talbott and Jaswant Singh followed. This dialogue between India and America is well documented in a book ‘Engaging India’ by Strobe Talbott himself. The Indo-US relationship was changed profoundly. India has never looked back.

Pakistan decided to take a completely different route. It tried to grab Kargil by force but invited the wrath of America instead. Humiliated, the Pakistani Army staged a coup and imposed the military rule for the next 8 years. Pakistan has since used its nuclear capability to blackmail India with little success. Frustrated by the outcome, Pakistan chose terrorism as an instrument of its foreign policy. It encouraged Taliban to take-over Afghanistan and used Al-Qaeda to destabilize Jammu & Kashmir in India. This resulted into completely unintended consequences. Al-Qaeda planned and launched the 9/11 attack on the United States, from the Pakistani soil.

The past 8 years have been a nightmare for Pakistan. It has a fragile civilian government as a show-piece, a belligerent military mired in the FATA region, a rouge ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) freelancing, the entire Pakistan occupied Kashmir and NWFP in control of dangerous militants and terrorists, a failed economy and a desperate population of 170 million people. Who would have an appetite to even look at such a mess? Fortunately, America has as much a stake in Pakistan as does India or Afghanistan. This imperative has prompted Barack Obama to appoint Richard Holbrooke as a special representative to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

Charlie Rose – a conversation with Richard Holbrooke