Benzair Bhutto was assasinated today in Rawalpindi in Pakistan. Her assassination has drawn words of codemn from President Musharraf as well as across the world from BJP Leader LK Advani to U.S. President George Bush. This assassination follows recent remarks by Ms Bhutto that madrassas were fomenting Islamic Terrorism.
Back in October when Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan, Offstumped pondered if
A notion of stability in Pakistan buffered us all this long and that notion is?fast turning?out to be merely?a figment of our failed imagination
As Nitin points out in his post that this was not a faceless runaway suicide bomber but it was a Security Official from within the inner perimeter of her security ring.
While conspiracy theories abound,?the undeniable fact is that is staring us in the face is the radicalization of key State Organs to a degree where you can no longer tell Sentinel from Terrorist.
This is the macabre reality that forces us to see a Frankensteinistan in Pakistan.
Nitin rightly asks does America have a Plan B ?
It is instructive to refresh our memory with these words from President Bush, then candidate Bush in the run up to the 2000 Presidential Election in the United States.
I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders.
It took an event of the magnitude of 9-11 inside the United States (matched only by Pearl Harbor) to force a inward looking George W Bush?into a reluctant ?”Nation Builder” in Afghanistan. The current sequence of events in Pakistan coming up in the last year of the Bush Presidency, should leave no one in no doubt that this mess to the west of our borders is the next President’s Afghanistan in the making.
So while America may not have a Plan B, do we across from the border even have a Plan A ?
Back in November when Musharraf imposed Martial Law or Emergency as he called it, a raging debate ensued over at The Acorn on “Re-integration of Pakistan” with the Indian Union or conversely a balkanization of Pakistan.
As the Indian Establishment ponders its Plan A (hopefully someone somewhere in North Block is burning up the midnight oil thinking this up), it is perhaps time to consider pro-active measures with a degree of known and acceptable collateral damage.
As Nitin had said sometime back ” the day when inaction is no longer possible” has come.
India must act?to guide the unraveling of Frankensteinistan in a direction that results in a balkanized Pakistan made up of motely States which individually at worst be can be merely a nusiance and collectively at best can be in long term strategic interests of India.
Inaction is no longer an option?and would only?pave the way for a 9-11 scale macabre future in the Indian Homeland.?
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>> India must act to guide the unraveling of Frankensteinistan in a direction that results in a balkanized Pakistan made up of motely States
what non-sense. and who keeps the nukes btw. waziristan?
balaji – nobody, take them out “pro-actively”, north korea appears to be more stable than pakistan right now.
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Pakistan is not India. Pakistan is a rough country, with a fatalisticly tough population. Something like this in India might have affected the Indian polity, but pakistan is a different story. People have predicted the end of Pakistan, disintegration, or de-nuking or whatever in the past, 9/11 for example, but pakistani army has a way to wiggle out of any situation.
As I have read in a book about Pakistan, ‘people rob others by pointing a gun on their head, Pakistanis will rob you with a gun on their head’. I cant remember the author of this great observation.
Well, Pakistan, has just pointed a NUKE on its head, and its former masters in CIA, Pentagon, and state department cannot wait to bail it out yet again. Dont be surprised if the US doles out billions more in military, economic aid to keep the generals happy.
The Indian government is ofcourse too impotent and wil just watch and complain about the detoriating situation in pakistan.
An active DECONSTRUCTION of pakistan into smaller, more manageable, de-nuked bangladesh like entities would be India’s dream, but dont bet on that happening any time soon.
I wonder if there really is any significant danger of Pakistani nukes falling into wrong hands:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/washington/18nuke.html
@archee
Isnt the fact that they are pakistani nukes, mean, they are already in the wrong hands ? =)
Imagine a scenario, where they drop one on calcutta, and then simply, raise their hands saying, oh, the terrorists ‘temporarily’ took over. This way, India gets hurt, and cant even retaliate. ( especially if these congi idiots are in power, god forbid they lose their vote bank )
Isnt this the very nature of the proxy terrorist war they are fighting with India right now, succesfully, having killed more Indian soldiers then all previous wars ?
I don’t think Pakistanis can access their nukes without Uncle’s consent.
The American program was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration debated whether to share with Pakistan one of the crown jewels of American nuclear protection technology, known as “permissive action links,” or PALS, a system used to keep a weapon from detonating without proper codes and authorizations.
No wonder Pakistan is a Failed State…..
Mr. Jinnah(Founder of Pakistan) himself acknowledged this fact when he said “My biggest mistake is Creation of Pakistan”
Make a big giant fence all the way across the entire border and then do not interfere in their affairs. Point out to them that “Hum log kissi doosray pariar ke do bhaion ke beech ke jhagde main nahin padte” (We do not interfere in other peoples family matters)
As you saw, so shall you reap. Feel for her though.
Offtopic: Waiting for your analysis on BJP’s himachal win. Hope they don’t get carried away by the recent victories and get complacent before the parliment elections.
Hi Yossarin,
Give us the scoop on Himachal. Mainstream media hiding behind Benazir – Rajdeep Sardesai trying to fake enthusiasm about the BJP but the eyes tell a different story.
Deriving happiness from Pakistan’s suffering, how does it benefit us ? They are not unlike us – similar culture and values. They are seeing the fruits of drinking from the cup of extreme anger and fanaticism – India’s success is due to its moderate and peaceful stand. As seen in US multi-culturism is great for the economy.
@archee
I hope the NYT article is right, I hope the americans have a grip on the Paki nukes, because from what one has seen from the bush administration foriegn office, It’s a bunch of idealogical idiots, without a clue about the muslim world, case in point, the war in Iraq.
besides, the article seems very shaky, and unsure, about what it is trying to communicate. It seems to go back and forth between, paki secured paki nukes to american secured paki nukes, and then even stating its not sure exactly what the current situation is, or that it is CLASSIFIED. the situation is not very clear as revealed by these quotes from the article.
“That is because the Pakistanis do not want to reveal the locations of their weapons or the amount or type of new bomb-grade fuel the country is now producing.”
“the program has been hindered by a deep suspicion among Pakistan’s military that the secret goal of the United States was to gather intelligence about how to locate and, if necessary, disable Pakistan’s arsenal, which is the pride of the country.
“Everything has taken far longer than it should,” a former official involved in the program said in a recent interview, “and you are never sure what you really accomplished.”
Yes indeed, there is no pleasure to be reaped from what is going on Pakistan. A politically unstable neighbor is nothing short of problems for India, from the support given by Maoists from Nepal, endless influx of Bangladeshi immigrants as well as terrorist cells using Bangladesh as a new base, Tamil liberation groups in Sri Lanka and their ties to India, and now a lawless Pakistan where violent extremist groups have free reign (more than ever before).
The Himachal win is good boding for the BJP and good boding that the BJP and Congress will continue to be the poles around which national politics revolve. At this point, the Congress is only ruling on its own in 2 decent-sized states – Haryana and AP, perhaps its saddest situation at the state level ever. Of course, that does not undermine the need for alliance-building and organization-building as 2009 approaches fast. Old partners like INLD, AIADMK look within reach, an organizational revamp to make gains in UP will be necessary as well. Lots of work to do, but most importantly, the BJP workers are re-energized, a future national leader is emerging from Gen-Next(Modi, and one shouldn’t overlook Raje if she holds onto Rajasthan), and the RSS is disappearing from day-to-day affairs of the party after the UP disaster. The only one who should be unhappy in the party is Rajnath, who has almost nothing to show on his own for two years as party President.
besides, the article seems very shaky, and unsure, about what it is trying to communicate.
They cannot go and flatly state that America possesses the key to the box containing Pakistan’s crown jewels. Condi had also talked about systems in place to ensure Pakistani nukes do not fall in wrong hands, however it is the confidence of the US Generals that convinces me.
@archee
Benazir was supposed to be US’s woman in Pakistan, you saw what happened to her.
The US has given Pakistan about 10 Billion since 9/11, in exchange for fighting their war on terror. 6 years on, the Taliban and Al Qaeda are not just existing, they are alive and kicking. The US itself doubts what exactly Pakistan has achieved, and how reliable Pakistanis are.
If the US cannot even get Pakistan to do the most basic things, fight terror, protect Benazir (their puppet), in Pakistan, how can you expect the Pakis to give them the key to their nukes ?
I’m not saying you are completely wrong in stating US might have some control over paki nukes, I’m just pointing out that like everything else in Pakistan, nothing is for sure, everything is rather murky and shady. Indians, unlike the americans, do not have the luxury of being unsure about who exactly controls paki nukes, and risk a un-retaliate-able terrorist nuclear strike which the pakis would be more then happy to carry out. The current BJP or Congi leadership(except for modi), do not instill the confidence, that they would take pakistan off the map if such a strike happened.
Furthermore, Condi or the american generals, dont have much credibility, they are the architects the war in iraq, and you see how wonderful that turned out.
India must act to guide the unraveling of Frankensteinistan in a direction that results in a balkanized Pakistan made up of motely States which individually at worst be can be merely a nusiance and collectively at best can be in long term strategic interests of India.
Could you write a separate post, elaborating your ideas on this in detail? A short paragraph, merely dictating the direction to take is not good enough. You should perhaps make a detailed case addressing the following:
a) What kind of balkanized Pakistan is theoretically possible? And what version of it do you foresee coming?
b) What measures can India take to intervene in this – positively and negatively? What are the costs of such measures?
c) What benefits does India stand to gain from a balkanized Pakistan? What are the best & worst case scenarios in your opinion?
As you can see, this will take quite some work. But without that, a policy prescription can’t be taken seriously.
[...] 27th December Offstumped had called for a proactive Indian Strategy to deal with the unravelling of Pakistan. Nitin over at The Acorn has written a piece calling for [...]
[...] then events starting with Bhutto’s assasination to the War on Mumbai have only confirmed that this frankenstein underwritten by the West is real [...]