Giving India a distinct nuclear advantage over Pakistan necessarily drives it further into seeking support from China and even Russia. Perhaps for the first time one sees in print the fact that “to date Pakistan has lost more soldiers killed and wounded than the US led coalition in Afghanistan” — and President Bush has the temerity to ask us to do more than he himself is capable of or willing to do.

There is no doubt that the Mujahideen and their successors the Taliban were a US-funded creation which Pakistan helped to set up. Unless the Afghan Pakhtuns are incorporated into the political mainstream in Afghanistan, the Karazai regime in Kabul can never extend its writ beyond Kabul itself, and there can never be peace or proper governance in that war-torn country.

To expect Pakistan to dump their old allies in the ranks of the Taliban and now to actually fight to eliminate them shows how far from the world of reality the hawks in the Bush administration have gone. Historical facts and ground realities or even geopolitical compulsions facing Pakistan seem to be of no consequence to our so-called allies in the White House.

While one can hardly agree with Michael Scheuer’s view that Pakistan is in danger of being reduced to an “indefensible sliver of territory, faced by angry warlike tribes to the west and a billion plus, nuclear-armed Indians to the East”, there can be no doubt that President Bush’s recent visit to the subcontinent has in fact created more problems and solved none, leaving it more vulnerable to instability than before. Bush has quite needlessly gone overboard in courting India to the extent of making a laughing stock of his own presidency.

For Pakistan, surviving vicissitudes is nothing new. Its geo-strategic location itself ensures its position as a kingpin in the affairs of the subcontinent and this is not likely to change in the foreseeable future.

S. ASIF MAJEED
Karachi