Nerve Endings Firing Away

But — and here’s the crux of the matter — how long can India, Indians and the Singh government withstand the constant pressure from militant groups before they have to react? By any measure of international diplomacy, they’ve already been extraordinarily patient; compare their restraint with Israel’s response to the kidnapping of its soldier or to the U.S. and Japanese responses to North Korea’s missile tests.

Now is a moment when Pakistan really needs to respond. It wants to be taken seriously as an important player on the international scene. It has repeatedly asked the United States for a nuclear energy deal similar to the one we are working on with India. But until Pakistan — and this means not only President Pervez Musharraf but also the military, the people and the political parties, including the religious party, the MMA — gets serious about shutting down, arresting and otherwise dismantling the militant groups that operate from its territory, it cannot expect to be treated as a responsible player in the region. Pakistan is working on it, but it could do so much more.

Xenia Dormany writing in the Washington Post rightly puts Pakistan on the spot saying that India’s patience might be running out. The standoff after the Parliament attack was a reaction that would have lead to war between the two now-nuclear powers. Thankfully the tension was diffused after Western powers intervened and I guess, Pakistan was asked to clean up its act. The West will have no other excuse if India decides that enough is enough and chalks up a more agressive response. I hope it doesn’t come to that though and Pakistan wakes up to common and diplomatic sense.