A village was once visited by a magician. The magician took some powder and threw it into the village well, declaring all those who drink from the well will go mad. There were only two wells in the village. One for the people of the village and another in the king’s palace. Sooner most couldn’t hold their thirst and on drinking from the well went mad. Only the king and his few loyal ones remained sane. The king’s palace was surrounded by people, even his troops drank from the same well. The mob wanted the king’s head. Someone suggested, the only way which remains is to run to the well outside and drink from it. The king and his fellow men and women did the same. All went crazy, they had an orgy that night. Every one thanked God for giving sense to their King. Pakistan is that village.
Pakistan’s purpose of war is not to secure itself, but to prove it has the ability to hurt India. It rejoices in its capability to attack and cowers into pretending nice when threatened with consequences. But, peace is temporary, it is necessary perfidy to avoid or manage the blowback. Any possibility of course correction is impossible. The criminality is cheered because it has religious sanction. Not just religion is used to justify attacks, it is an obligation and motivation for it. Peace, itself means differently. It is the victim’s silence to perpetrator’s actions. To understand Pakistan’s diplomacy, it is important to understand what Pakistan deals with.
Pakistan’s main dealing is security. It undermines other’s security by risking its own. It has so far managed to avoid the consequences of its adventures. Pakistan even benefits from it. If there was no war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and no war on terror, its coffers would have remained empty. Any deals it does with another country is a deal with security. Right from its start, Pakistan was willing to be an anchor point for the west. Now, it is happy to be a Chinese colony, the only thing that remains constant is its enmity towards India.
Recent comments by Trump on Kashmir, declaration of Balochistan Liberation Army as a terror group, and differences between the US representative to Afghanistan and Afghan Government tells of the United States failure in understanding Pakistan and perhaps its lack of will and intent too. These developments appear to be part of the deal for its exit from Afghanistan. But, it is India’s naiveness to not have a long term plan in action against Pakistan, which allows Pakistan to recuperate time and again after the ad-hoc retributions from our side.
A nearby threat that seems to be emerging is through Al-Qaeda. Zawahiri, who lives possibly under Pakistan’s intelligence agency’s protection, threatened India and in the same video message also called Pakistan’s ISI unreliable and secular. No one has ever called ISI secular, this addition is to provide plausible deniability to Pakistan for an attack on India by Al-Qaeda as a front. It is important that we don’t fall into the trap of joint investigations and be ready to give a compelling reply to Pakistan for its misadventure.
Republished from my personal blog – https://wp.me/p9eFgc-n1
