INDIA DOESN'T LIKE THE HELP

Over the weekend, General Petraeus received two Pakistani advisers for a review of the war plans in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ahmed Rashid is an expert on the Taliban and Afghanistan, and Shuja Nawaz, author of a book on the Pakistan Army. Both are part of the 100 or so military specialists that make up the Joint Strategic Assessment Team, and the Indian government is concerned.

New Delhi is unhappy over an article Rashid co-published in the journal Foreign Affairs.

“More fundamentally, the concept of "pressuring" Pakistan is flawed. No state can be successfully pressured into acts it considers suicidal. The Pakistani security establishment believes that it faces both a U.S.-Indian-Afghan alliance and a separate Iranian-Russian alliance, each aimed at undermining Pakistani influence in Afghanistan and even dismembering the Pakistani state. Some (but not all) in the establishment see armed militants within Pakistan as a threat -- but they largely consider it one that is ultimately controllable, and in any case secondary to the threat posed by their nuclear-armed enemies.

... A first step could be the establishment of a contact group on the region authorized by the UN Security Council. This contact group, including the five permanent members and perhaps others (NATO, Saudi Arabia), could promote dialogue between India and Pakistan about their respective interests in Afghanistan and about finding a solution to the Kashmir dispute...”

India is basically concerned with the article's proposition that the best way for the international community to deal with Pakistan is to “resolve” the Kashmir issue and then the problem of terrorism operating in its territory– of secondary importance to Pakistan - will accordingly be sorted.

But to India, Pakistan does not have a legitimate claim over Kashmir.