Only India Can Save Pakistan

After the Lahore bomb blast, India's new external affairs minister S M Krishna expressed the hope that New Delhi and Islamabad could make a 'joint effort' to fight the Hydra-headed monster of terrorism which is now threatening the existence of Pakistan, which for long had provided it sanctuary. The statement reflected the recognition that should Pakistan go under, the consequences for India would be catastrophic. Pakistan urgently needs help in saving itself. Taliban insurgents, battling the Pakistani army in Swat, have threatened to carry the jihad home into the civilian population by mounting 'major attacks' in cities spread over the country. What Islamabad faces today is an undeclared state of civil war.

Who is to help Pakistan save it from itself? Islamabad's chief sponsor, the US, is increasingly more a part of the problem than of a solution. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has said that the previous US administration's Pakistan policy had been 'disastrous'; US intelligence officials have stated that the country has more 'terrorists per square mile' than any other in the world. But Washington has yet to acknowledge its complicity in this state of affairs, in that it was the US which initially promoted the Taliban in Afghanistan to fight the occupying Soviets. Today, Obama's 'Af-Pak' policy, which seeks to distinguish 'good' Taliban from 'bad Taliban' seems a disastrous extension of Washington's earlier misadventure. Worse, a US Congressional report reveals that the hugely stepped-up aid that Washington is pumping into Pakistan, so as to help it fight the terror threat that is besieging it from within, is in fact largely being used by Islamabad to build up its nuclear arsenal, the bulk of which is targeted at India. So much for the US marines to the rescue.