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Skepticism Makes Sense Well-informed analysts know to keep the champagne on ice. At a conference at Tufts University last week attended by experts on Afghanistan, not a single optimistic take on that nation's long-standing problems could be heard. One comment became a refrain: "I have no doubt that peace will one day come to Afghanistan, but I can't say if it will be in 50 or 200 years," a speaker said. "What I can say is that at the rate we are going now, it's unlikely to be any sooner than that...
Islamabad's long-standing nightmare remains: that when the Americans go, its neighbors - especially India, Pakistan's hated rival - will be influential in Kabul. The Taliban and the Haqqanis are insurance against such an eventuality. Baradar's detention has not yet changed Pakistan's assessment of how its own interests may best be defended. Remember, too, that no matter how well Operation Moshtarak seems to be going, many Taliban commanders think they are winning. Whatever happens in Marjah, they can point to a widening influence across Afghanistan. They also have been heartened by last week's announcement that...
...Delhi foreign policy circles is that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wants peace with Pakistan to be the crowning achievement of his second term in office - just as the U.S.-India civilian nuclear deal was in the first. Pakistan, meanwhile, is looking for a settlement of its long fight with India over Kashmir, something that the U.S. believes is a key to long-term stability in the region, especially Afghanistan. "In essence, this is a 'talk about talks,' " says Wilson John, a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank in New Delhi. "If you ignore the public...
...talks. But despite some pressure from opposition parties, the Indian government stuck to its program. Indian authorities have refrained from pinning blame on Pakistan for the Pune blast; there has been no official claim of responsibility. India, which wants credit for that restraint, came to the table with a long list of demands. Rao presented Bashir with three dossiers of evidence linking Pakistan to the Mumbai attacks, including a list of 34 Pakistanis wanted for various terrorist attacks in India. The dossiers and Rao's language - she talked about "unhindered activities of organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat...
...Afghanistan While it won't figure in official talks between India and Pakistan, Afghanistan is the most important subtext. Both countries are starting the long process of positioning themselves for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Central Asian country and want to preserve their influence there. Pakistan fears that Kabul will end up with close links to New Delhi, allowing India to essentially "surround" Pakistan; India worries that if the Taliban return to power, India will face more terrorist attacks at home. Influential Indian foreign policy analyst C. Raja Mohan has even suggested, in a recent editorial...