Last Post Before Chicago

As you can guess from reading the title, I am headed off to the Windy city today, and will not be back before Tuesday. While I really hope no war erupts in South Asia, I could not leave without writing a bit about the current crisis. Sadly, it seems, especially from the DOD perspective, the U.S.'s interests lie primarily with the fallout an India-Pakistan war could have on the United States war on terrorism. It seems the Americans are now sending Secretary Rumsfeld to the region, in attempts to ease the tension.

Moreover, what is thoroughly confusing is the vocality of U.S. support for Pakistan. Sure, Musharraf, for the U.S. interest in the war on terror, must remain stable, but at what cost? He made claims in his January 12 address that terror was going to stop. Now, six months later, he is making the same claims. It is apparent that nothing has stopped. So is he a lion or a liar. The U.S. is still praising him as a lion, but with all the tension ongoing, I am not too sure how wise this U.S. policy is. Throughout the cold war, the U.S. attributed to the stinting of democracy in order to fight against the communists. Pinochet in 72, Yahya in Pakistan in the seventies, recently in Venezuela, and now again, Musharraf in Pakistan in the 2002's. The fallout is indeed dangerous, and in this instance, the India-Paksitan situation is extremely tense.

What I think will happen, is because of the plethora of rhetoric being spewed from both India and Pakistan, the U.S., the only actor really strong enough to force its opinion, will have to mediate to lessen this particular crisis. And like in 1999, to U.S. will have to strongly force Pakistan to pull back the militants to avert a crisis.

I guess we'll see. There is, like always, more to come later. For now, I am going to eat lots of deep dish pizza.

posted by sajit @ 6:17 PM