Afghanistan is now India's problem

By Sumit Ganguly Tuesday, July 19, 2011 - 5:36 PM Share

The United States may soon have the option of washing its hands of Afghanistan. But with an untrustworthy Pakistani military exerting greater influence, India does not.

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BURT LUCHERINI

5:36 AM ET

August 15, 2011

Afghanistan is now India's problem

President Obama's trip to India offers a crucial, and counterintuitive, opportunity missing in all the talk about Afghanistan: how to accommodate Pakistan's interests in that country. Unless we find a way to do that, Pakistan will not stop its tolerance of or support for the Afghan Taliban or other extremists on its border with Afghanistan - nor will it let us eradicate them. While serious analysts agree that such a shift is necessary for any U.S. success in Afghanistan, many fail to follow this logic to its conclusion: that we must persuade Pakistan it can crack down on Afghan extremists without jeopardizing its cross-border interests. What are those interests? First and foremost, to minimize the presence and influence in Afghanistan of Pakistan's own archrival, India. Yet somehow this point is absent from most American debates about these issues, probably because of our narrow focus on terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. In fact, the United States has stoked Pakistani paranoia by encouraging India to become the region's major economic player in Afghanistan, to train priya rai Afghan officials, and exercise other influence on the Afghan government and people.