November 26th 2008
The Mumbai-Afghanistan Connection
The latest news tonight from The Times of India has six foreigners dead among the 101 killed by the Mumbai terrorists, and up to 40 Brits and other foreign nationals as hostages. Faced with this,
President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday condemned the Mumbai attacks and said the United States must work to strengthen ties with India and other nations to “root out and destroy terrorist networks.”
“These coordinated attacks on innocent civilians demonstrate the grave and urgent threat of terrorism,” Obama’s chief national security spokesperson, Brooke Anderson, said in a statement.
“The United States must continue to strengthen our partnerships with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks.”
I’m all for closer ties with India; it’s a must-do. The problem is, these attacks could well pit India against Pakistan – that’s clearly a strong possibility for the ultimate rationale behind the attacks. India uncovers ties between the terrorists and Pakistan’s closet jihadist intelligence agency behind the attacks, things heat up, more evidence, more attacks, more heat.
And so it may quickly come down to India and Pakistan looking to Obama and asking, “Who’s side are you on?”
If Obama wants to keep his one macho card, his one rattling saber, his commitment to more war in Afghanistan, he’s going to have to go with Pakistan. No Pakistan, no route for materiel to Afghanistan. So working to strengthen ties with India is a nice idea but a dangerous bit of wording that won’t fly far in Islamabad.
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