Saturday, December 13, 2008

The Unwanted Solution

The Indian government does not want the Mumbai terrorist attack to lead to war with Pakistan. As their foreign minister put it:

Mukherjee told the Indian Parliament Dec. 11, "I am making it quite clear that it [war] is not a solution." Mukherjee added that New Delhi is putting international pressure on Islamabad to attack the terrorists in Pakistan.


Hopefully, the level of Pakistani cooperation will be sufficient that the Indian government can stick by this desire.

One can never tell how the Indian government will react if Pakistan fails to adequately respond to the attack. The Indian people might very well think that war or the threat of war is very much the solution to a Pakistan that has no desire to prevent its territory from being used as a staging ground for terrorists bent on killing Indians.