USA, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India - Is History About to Repeat?

It is crunch time for Indian diplomats in Afghanistan. The United States has woken up to the reality that their mission to create a Jeffersonian democracy over there is a lost cause. Even when it was a monarchy years ago the state of Afghanistan did not have strong Kabul-centered rule but a loose coalition of tribal leaders running the countryside and US military will not be able to change that. President Obama, in spite of his silver tongued ideological speeches, is just another political animal. He does not want to carry a liability even a minute longer than he has to. His advisors are recommending that he unload Afghanistan ASAP and they know that people's memory is short. Very soon the US will wash its hands off Afghanistan and the place is about to descent into its usual chaos. If Indian diplomacy functions like business as usual, India will be the looser and the winner will be Pakistan.

Pakistan eagerly working hard to take over the vacuum created by the exit of United States and getting handsomely paid for it. United States did use Pakistan some thirty years ago to get the Russians out. Pakistan managed the war all the while raising Taliban terrorists to send to Kashmir, Chechnya and Bosnia with the bills being paid by the United States. The US administration could care less about Taliban or terrorism as long as it did not affect them. The situation is about to repeat. It puts Pakistan in an excellent financial and strategic position as they can enlarge their terror camps to Afghanistan and continue to terrorize the neighborhood on a grander scale.

In such situation the looser is India because its internal security is further endangered and the infrastructure work it did in Afghanistan will come to nothing. All the goodwill that India accumulated with the current Afghan administration will be lost under the new regime which will be of Pakistan's choosing.

The mistakes committed by the United States in the 80's and Pakistan taking advantage of them created huge security problems for India. We hope that Indian diplomats will be working overtime to ensure it does not happen again.

Those who do not learn from history are cursed to suffer repetition.