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Another Summit

By Joe Klein | @JoeKleinTIME | February 24, 2010 | +

The health care summit may be important. Or not. But there is another summit Thursday that could prove absolutely crucial: the resumption of talks between India and Pakistan. The initial prospects don’t seem very good. The Indians want to talk about Pakistani support for terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, which committed the Mumbai massacre in 2008; the Pakistanis want to talk about the 60-year dispute over Kashmir, which has been at the heart of Pakistan’s support for terrorism. The amount of ill-will and paranoia between the two countries is staggering (when I last visited Islamabad, members of the Pakistani military seemed obsessed with potential Indian involvement in the rebellion in Baluchistan). But at least they’re talking–and it should be remembered that the two countries came very close to a Kashmir agreement in 2007, when Pervez Musharraf was still in power in Pakistan.

For Americans, the most important potential development is this: If tensions diminish between India and Pakistan, Afghanistan becomes more of a sideshow–and less of a contest for power between the two countries. The Pakistanis seem to be reconsidering their historic support for the Taliban; this may be the right moment to resume the Kashmir negotiations. These new talks are a significant piece in the South Asian jigsaw puzzle. If they go well, we may be a step closer to leaving Afghanistan.

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  • bitterpill8

    JK: My 10 cents: The Kashmir dispute is the base on which each side has built is own shaky edifice. Everything flows from that: Pakistan’s support for the Taliban and India’s efforts at undermining Pakistan influnece in Afghanistan.

    Until that issue is settled nothing much can be accomplished. An independent Ksshmir with guaranteed access to the sea may well be the solution that will allow India and Pakistan to focus on terrorism in both countries.

    Did you see the Doha Debate on the treatment of Muslim minorities in India on BBC? The vote tells one a lot about Indian “nationalism”. Ironically india has had a Muslim President and senior Muslim Cabinet officers. Can Pakistan match that?

  • rs239

    As an Indian, I don’t see any percentage for India in these talks. Pakistan’s peeve with India is existential and not merely about Kashmir. They perceive many insults, real and imagined (e.g. Bangladesh’s creation). Their support for Sikh terrorism in the 1980′s in Punjab had nothing to do with Kashmir, it was purely proxy war against India. The more India pulls away from Pakistan in terms of economic and geo-political importance, the less incentive Pakistan has to play nice. After all, the Pakistani Army needs somebody to fight against.

    As such, from India’s perspective, it’d not be a bad thing if US were to remain in Afghanistan indefinitely. With India, the Pakistanis play the we’ll-nuke-you-first card (they don’t care if India’ll nuke them to stones and beards after that). With US, they can’t pull that– unlike India, the US can take out Paki nukes before Pakistan deploys them.

    The best case scenario for India then is that the US stay materially invested in the region. Pakistan will inevitable slide even deeper into anarchy and at some point of time, US can take out the Paki nukes. Once that is done, things will be easier all around.

  • southernbell49

    First off, has anyone else seen the amazing video that’s making the rounds of the border Indian-Pakistani Wagah border closing ceremony? Unbelievable.

    Secondly, one of Bill Clinton’s unsung success stories as president was his stepping in to ratchet down tensions between India and Pakistan when he was president and I’m sure Hillary has special insight into the situation because of her unique position.

  • bitterpill8

    rs239: Hi! you are setting out a widely held viewpoint which has currency in New Delhi. May I ask: does India want a continuation of the tension hoping that Pakistan will implode from within? I know that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto wept at the UN when Bangladesh was created; and he pinned the blame on India. But the US was a Cold War ally of Pakistan throughout its military dictatorships and “democracy” under the Bhuttos while India aligned with Russia and the Non-Aligned. Both countries have had a history of being played by the “Great Powers”. Only now India is taking on a stature that makes it necessary for the US to take it seriously. But..should both countries allow their development to be dictated by US interests?

  • pintortwo

    Mr. Klein, I appreciate your thoughtful analysis of the upcoming summit between India and Pakistan. However, I think you miss the mark when you discuss what it means “for Americans”. Of course, tension between these two countries is significant, but it has always been a “sideshow” as pertains to Afghanistan.
    .
    In 2004 Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld wrote the National Defense Strategy of the United States and was very clear about the military’s mission. He advocated a new Global Defense Posture (link) centered around:

    A network of forward facilities and capabilities, mainly in four critical regions (Europe, Northeast Asia, the East Asian Littoral, and the Middle East Southwest Asia), provides the United States with an unmatched ability to act globally…
    .
    To strengthen our capability for prompt global action and our flexibility to employ military forces where needed, we require the capacity to move swiftly into and through strategic pivot points and remote locations. The new global posture-using main operating bases (MOB), forward operating sites (FOS), and a diverse array of more austere cooperative security locations (CSL)- will support such needs.
    .
    and promptly began building facilities in Afghanistan (link):
    .
    The military has already spent roughly $2.7 billion on construction over the past three fiscal years. Now, if its request is approved as part of the fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill, it would spend another $1.3 billion on more than 100 projects at 40 sites across (Afghanistan), according to a Senate report on the legislation.
    .
    We’ll have spent $4 billion, and counting, on these sites by the end of the year. Regardless of the outcome of this important summit, we will not be “a step closer to leaving Afghanistan”; we will continue building, operating and protecting bases throughout Middle East Southwest Asia, specifically Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

  • Ivy_B

    I heard on the BBC this morning that all anyone in India cares about at the moment is the cricket player who scored more points in one day than anyone ever.

    Sachin Tendulkar has set an ODI record with a 200 run performance for India’s team against South Africa. The double-century landmark is the highest one day score for a player in the sport of international cricket.

    The BBC said that for the moment, no one there cares about the summit. Trust it will get back to normal soon!

  • http://forgottenlord.livejournal.com forgottenlord

    And all that anyone in the US cares about is whether Tiger Woods will issue an apology to his 14 mistresses. Doesn’t mean serious work doesn’t get done by actual officials

  • Ivy_B

    Of course not. I was’t being silly. The story was actually delightful. This is an amazing feat. They even mentioned the Pakistani arrival at the airport but that historic moment was being overlooked by the people there because of the cricket player.
    .
    I don’t give a rip about Tiger Woods and have not from the beginning. People in India are very very serious cricket fans, this is a very big deal.
    .
    http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/02/crickets_sachin_tendulkar_mich.html
    .

    Think about Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile mark. Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points in an NBA game. Or maybe Don Larsen throwing a perfect game in the 1956 World Series.

    That should give you some sense of what happened today in Gwalior, India, when cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar recorded a “double century” in an international match pitting his Indian team against South Africa. He accomplished something no one else had done at that high a level in one of the world’s most popular sports.

  • Ike Jakson

    Good stuff, Ivy_B

    Let’s play cricket. Blog on it because I don’t think Joe Klein knows anything about it. What a pity?

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