India is justified in seeing the US move to go ahead with the sale of the F-16s as an attempt to balance America’s strategic partnership with India by once again propping up Pakistan as a regional challenger.

This is a good time for India to review its Afghan strategy taking into account increasing war weariness of the Western forces and President Karzai’s policy of reintegrating the ‘good Taliban’.

Though world opinion is still divided on whether the FMCT would include past stocks or not, Pakistan appears to have decided to continue with the production of fissile materials and oppose any talks at the CD.

Unless Baloch nationalists get their act together in pursuit of ‘achievable nationhood’, it will be only a matter of time before this latest upsurge in Balochistan will be brutally crushed.

If India indeed considers itself to be a rising power, it cannot remain a passive in the face of instability all around it.

It would appear that for the moment at least the TINA factor operates in favour of the Zardari/Gilani combine especially if they continue to occupy their offices without wielding any real power.

That the ISI patron is now becoming the victim of jehadi terrorism does not bode well for Pakistan, which now has to recast the agency’s role and organizational ethos to contain the Taliban.

Obama’s signal that the United States seeks to exit in 18 months will be viewed with scepticism by fence sitters in Afghanistan who will identify the victor as the one who endures.

The current change in the Chair of the NCA merely indicates the declining power of President Zardari and does not necessarily mean empowerment of the civilian government.