INDIA’S TERROR STANCE VEXES OBAMA AMID VOTER IRE AT PAKISTAN
James Rupert
Bloomberg, February 23, 2009
India’s 670 million voters may be about to set back President Barack Obama’s campaign against Islamic militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
India’s ruling Congress Party, which heeded U.S. calls to avoid threatening its neighbor after November’s Mumbai terrorist attack, is heading for elections that might push it from office. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, which accuses Congress of a “soft approach” toward terrorism, says India should consider blockading Pakistan’s main port and severing ties unless the government extradites 20 suspected militants.
A less cooperative India would hamper Obama’s effort to keep Pakistan’s army focused on fighting the Taliban and other guerrillas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
“The BJP is more hard-line now than when it was in power,” says Gareth Price, head of the Asia program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. “There’s no question they would increase the pressure on Pakistan, and that would complicate matters for the Obama administration.” The likeliest outcome, he says, may be a weak coalition government led by one of the two large parties and including some of India’s burgeoning small parties.
This month, Pakistan ceded effective control of the Swat Valley, 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Islamabad, in a truce with local Taliban. The Taliban’s gains threaten to further destabilize Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- and diminish pressure on al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who’s believed to be hiding in the region.
James Rupert
Bloomberg, February 23, 2009
India’s 670 million voters may be about to set back President Barack Obama’s campaign against Islamic militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
India’s ruling Congress Party, which heeded U.S. calls to avoid threatening its neighbor after November’s Mumbai terrorist attack, is heading for elections that might push it from office. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, which accuses Congress of a “soft approach” toward terrorism, says India should consider blockading Pakistan’s main port and severing ties unless the government extradites 20 suspected militants.
A less cooperative India would hamper Obama’s effort to keep Pakistan’s army focused on fighting the Taliban and other guerrillas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
“The BJP is more hard-line now than when it was in power,” says Gareth Price, head of the Asia program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. “There’s no question they would increase the pressure on Pakistan, and that would complicate matters for the Obama administration.” The likeliest outcome, he says, may be a weak coalition government led by one of the two large parties and including some of India’s burgeoning small parties.
This month, Pakistan ceded effective control of the Swat Valley, 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Islamabad, in a truce with local Taliban. The Taliban’s gains threaten to further destabilize Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- and diminish pressure on al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who’s believed to be hiding in the region.
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