Thaindian News

New Delhi, Dec.12 (ANI): The recent terrorist assaults in Mumbai have demonstrated more than ever that unless the United States reverses course on Pakistan, it will begin losing the war in Afghanistan, claims Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research.
The author of the book “Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan,” goes on further to say that this shift holds the key to the successful outcome of both the war in Afghanistan and the wider international fight against transnational terror.
First, if the US does not insist on getting to the bottom of who sponsored and executed the attacks in India’’s commercial and cultural capital, the Mumbai attacks will probably be repeated in the West. After all, India has served as a laboratory for transnational terrorists, who try out new techniques against Indian targets before seeking to replicate them in other pluralistic states.
Novel strikes first carried out against Indian targets and then perpetrated in the West include attacks on symbols of state authority, the midair bombing of a commercial jetliner, and coordinated strikes on a city transportation system.
By carrying out a series of simultaneous murderous rampages after innovatively arriving by sea, the Mumbai attackers have set up a model for use against other jihadist targets. The manner in which the world was riveted as a band of 10 young terrorists nearly all from Punjab Province in Pakistan held India hostage for three days is something jihadists would love to replicate elsewhere.
Second, let’’s be clear: The scourge of Pakistani terrorism emanates not so much from the Islamist mullahs as from generals who reared the forces of jihad and fathered the Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group reportedly behind the Mumbai attacks.
For too long, Washington has allowed politically expedient considerations to override its long-term interests. The US must actively encourage the elected leaders in Pakistan to gain full control over all of their country’’s national-security apparatus, including the nuclear establishment and ISI. And to forestall a military coup in response to such action, Washington should warn the generals of serious action, including possible indictment in The Hague, the Christian Science Monitor quotes Chellaney as saying in his article.
Since the economic viability of Pakistan depends on continued US aid as well as on US support for multilateral institutional lending, Washington has the necessary leverage. Further aid should be linked to definitive measures by Pakistan to sever institutional support to extremism. Only when the institutional support for terrorism is irrevocably cut off will the sanctuaries for training, command, control, and supply begin to wither away, he concludes. (ANI)