US-Pakistan strategic partnership will likely continue to outweigh US-India equation because of US national interests in Afghanistan and Central Asia

Post-bombing of the Israeli Embassy car in New Delhi there was much talk of US pressure on India to boycott Iran and that India is walking the tight rope in balancing the act between US-Israel and Iran. Why this commotion makes little sense. Where is the pressure, the tight rope and the need to go looking for a response?

Look at it this way. The global war on terror (GWOT) launched by the US was never a global war but purely a US war on terror (USWOT) with Pakistan roped in superficially and most reluctantly under threat of ‘being bombed into stone age’. The fact that India was already being subjected to terror attacks for past several years when GWOT was launched was ignored and organisation like the LeT was permitted to grow into as big and radical international level terrorist organisation as Al Qaeda.

On top of this the US wanted India to provide troops in Afghanistan under the ISAF. The US started worrying about the LeT, raised and nurtured by the ISI-Military combine of Pakistan for jihad against India, when LeT started propagating global jihad and their cadres started filling up voids in Al Qaeda courtesy US-NATO strikes. India repeatedly pointed out that Pakistan is playing a double game but was ignored by the US as was Chinese assistance in nuclearrising Pakistan.

The billions of dollars aid to Pakistan continued throughout and did not get checked despite clear evidence of Pakistan running with the hare and hunting with the hounds—establishing major Taliban terrorist training camps under pretext of sheltering Afghan refugees and using them to hit NATO supply lines along the international highway, using Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani network to target Indians, US and NATO in Afghanistan and the Osama bin Laden episode.

More significantly, there has been clear evidence of financial aid being provided under GWOT diverted by Pakistan for other/converse purpose. Despite $20 billion aid to Pakistan since 9/11, the Obama administration has already proposed military aid over civilian aid to Pakistan to the tune of $2.4 billion in 2013. Under the rubric of counter-terrorism US has even given Pakistan eight P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, six C-130 cargo planes, over 5,000 anti-armour missiles, 100 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, one Oliver Hazzard Perry-class missile frigate and now 18 new F-16 combat jets capable of nuclear payload are rolling in—all of which will be used against India.

Complete US withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014 appears more an election gimmick of Obama as indications on ground are different—improved/expanded airbases and new bases/facilities being added. The pronouncement that withdrawal may even be by 2013 was scoffed at by Mitt Romney. More importantly, US-Pakistan strategic partnership will likely continue to outweigh US-India equation because of US national interests in Afghanistan and Central Asia. That is why the US wants talks with Taliban knowing they will gain control of majority Afghanistan (if not all) post US thinning by 2014 and Pakistani efforts to push India out of Afghanistan.

Significantly, US shares terror related intelligence with India selectively and in delayed time frame whenever the finger points to Pakistan. As for technology, US never really offered state-of-the-art technologies to India. The US is fully aware of terrorist camps in POK and that the anti-India terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan is very much intact. Despite all this, US advises India to exercise restraint and talk peace with Pakistan. India should therefore simply follow suit; weighing its strategic and economic relations with Iran and tell Uncle Sam to have peace talks with Iran.

The views expressed herein are the personal views of the author.