If Pakistan succumbs to American pressure, it will continue to be engaged in a long war of attrition on its western borders. If Pakistan resists American pressure, it will be isolated in the world and the international community will have to fall back upon India to put a firewall around the AfPak region.

US calculation in backing Pakistani designs for controlling Afghanistan will bring even greater dangers to its own doorsteps.

The resumption of India-Pakistan dialogue is closely linked with US moves in Afghanistan in the context of Obama’s publicly declared intent to begin the process of US military withdrawal from Afghanistan from 2011.

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.

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.

The most dangerous aspect of the war on terror from India’s security point of view has been the CIA’s monetary assistance to the ISI.

Ideally, ISAF and NATO should concentrate on urban population centres along with the ANA, and the ANA should also deploy outside the towns and cities to dominate the hinterland and crack down on Taliban controlled areas.