[CENTER]<b><span style='color:Red'>Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar</span></b>[/CENTER]
<b>The Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline has been discussed for almost a decade, with its proponents arguing that it will promote our energy security. After 26/11, the project is dead. No Indian government can proceed with a deal that will give Pakistan a knife at India's energy throat. Far from promoting our energy security, it would be a source of immense national insecurity.
Just suppose the pipeline was complete and functioning today. The pipeline contract would have required Pakistan to ensure the safety of supplies. But Baluch insurgents have been bowing up gas pipelines in Pakistan for ages, so Islamabad could easily connive in the blowing up of the India section of the pipeline, claiming it did not control non-state actors, and indeed is opposed to them. Just as it did after 26/11, Pakistan could claim that it was itself a victim of sabotage, that India must not indulge in finger pointing, and that Islamabad would investigate the incident provided India provided enough evidence!
Wouldn't a pipeline deal include insurance against disruption of gas supplies? Well, maybe some brave global insurance company would come forward initially, but it would surely have charged premiums so hefty as to undercut the entire economic rationale of the pipeline, which was supposed to be cheaper than the alternative, which is supply through tankers carrying liquefied natural gas from Iran.</b> Besides, insurance contracts have "force majeure" clauses protecting the insurance company from liability in the event of war or civil conflict. So, the IPI pipeline would be an insecure project.
Why then have so many politicians and ideologues been canvassing the IPI pipeline with such vigour and passion? For two reasons. One, some naïve, optimistic politicians view India and Pakistan as natural partners separated by unwarranted mistrust, and they saw the pipeline as a way of building economic linkages, trust and friendship. Second, the entire left saw the pipeline as a way of spitting in the face of the US, and asserting India's independence in foreign policy.
The US opposed the pipeline on the ground that it would strengthen Iran's economy and enable that country to escape some of the economic sanctions penalties that the US has sought to impose on it. When India went slow on the IPI pipeline after the Bush-Manmohan Singh agreement of 2005, the left was livid at what it saw it as a foreign policy surrender of a junior partner in an unequal relationship. So obsessed was the Left with the need to combat US imperialism that it failed to see the threat that the pipeline would strengthen Pakistan.
At the time, most analysts agreed that the risk of an Indo-Pak war was remote. In the absence of war, many analysts felt that Pakistan was unlikely to cut the pipeline, for commercial and foreign policy reasons.
This analysis ignored risks involved in conflict at levels lower. Both countries have become nuclear powers, so open warfare is virtually impossible. For that very reason, each country needs to focus on strategies and pressure points other than war, which can be used as bargaining counters or for covert retaliation. <b>So, the pipeline in its current form must be viewed as dead. Yet the fact remains that India will need massive gas imports in the future. Iran is not a reliable supplier-it reneged on an earlier low-cost LNG deal with India, so we must find alternative suppliers. Yet Iran is too big to be totally ignored.</b>
So let's consider a different sort of pipeline. This will be a shallow offshore pipeline taking gas from Iran to the maritime boundary between India and Pakistan off Kutch. At this point, the pipeline can divide into two, with one section going north to Pakistan and the other going west to Kutch. Any sabotage of the main pipeline will hit Pakistan as badly as India -it will mean mutually assured destruction (MAD) of gas supply. The section going to each country from the maritime boundary will be in the territory of that country, under its own control.
In the Cold War, MAD was the basis of global security. By analogy, India and Pakistan need a MAD pipeline for security. Neither side will be able to hurt the other without hurting itself.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India mulling offer of 120,000 troops for Afghanistan
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Biggest stupidity. Moron Singh is really thinking from his empty box over his shoulder. Its too late now and Indians will be sitting duck, get ready for body bags, get ready for another HinduKush (Hindu slaughter).
Send commies from West Bengals to Afghanistan to create new country, it will be win win situation.
Makes sense. This would be another bakri being sent up by Manmohan. It will be more on the order of few thousand troops. Without assured supply routes and air cover, they will be swallowed up by Paki F-16's. Nothing happens in the Afghan theater, without prior NATO approval. Condi probably sounded this line to Manmohan: stand down in kashmir border, send up bakri to afghanistan instead, you will win next election on foolish hindu votes who will forget all anti-hindu maneuvers. bakri gets sent up before election, and gets taken down after election with no repurcussions. Commies will shadowbox their opposition. All jokers missing since nuke deal tamasha will crop up.
Nah, Indian bakri will be in Afghanistan and Paki tigers will be inside India doing bum bum with Indian Muslim. Jihad will be successful because of Moron Singh and Jihadi Congress Party of India.
Fools are ruling India.
12-31-2008, 01:32 AM (This post was last modified: 12-31-2008, 01:33 AM by dhu.)
Either this fellow has morphed into chanakya overnight (his previous stunt was framing Indian Army for "Hindu terrorism") or he is following script..... Here is statement from Manmohan today. Does it seem like India is going to war?
<b>Penn's firm resigns Pakistan account</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Opposition researchers dredging up tough questions for Hillary Clinton's secretary of state confirmation hearings have just lost a key piece of ammunition:<b> The global public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, headed by her campaign strategist Mark Penn, has quietly ended a two-year relationship with the Pakistan People's Party, the ruling party of Pakistan.
The questions could have been awkward for Clinton both politically and substantively, since she will have to manage relationships both with the Pakistanis and their cross-border rivals in India.</b>
Still, the details of the Pakistan contract provide a rare and revealing look at the techniques Penn's firm promised a foreign government to use to legally influence American public opinion and official policy.
............<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In the lobbying section of the contract, the companies committed to launching a broad public affairs campaign within the Bush Administration and the U.S. Congress, coordinating meetings for the late Prime Minister Bhutto in Washington, as well as working to "identify House and Senate champions."
<b>The public relations firm also promised an aggressive reach out to American journalists, such as New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman and Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria.</b> Burson-Marsteller planned to compose articles about the need to hold free elections in Pakistan and "place these articles in top publications." And finally, it said it would find Pakistani families living in the United States whose plight might make good raw material for journalists writing human-interest feature stories. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
LAHORE â <b>Pakistan is willing to pay Sri Lanka up to $1.5 million to play the hastily arranged series in January-February after the Indian tour cancellation, but the question is where will it arrange the money from?</b>
Reports coming from different quarters in the Pakistan Cricket Board suggest that Pakistan is unlikely to generate enough money from the series that would keep the board's finances flowing smoothly.
India decided to pull out of its tour of Pakistan over last month's terror attacks in Mumbai.
<b>The cancellation of that much-awaited series caused whopping losses of almost $25 million to the cash-strapped PCB.</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->KARACHI - Pakistan has the highest rate of mark-up and the highest rate of inflation compared with the other countries in the world.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pakistan today asked India to send positive signals by deactivating its forward air bases and relocating ground troops to peace time positions, saying it is ready to cooperate in probing Mumbai attacks and bringing perpetrators of the crime to justice.
'If the forward airbases activated by India are deactivated, it will be a very positive signal,' Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in a brief address on state-run PTV.
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Similarly, he proposed that ground forces which have been deployed to forward post should be relocated to peace time positions.
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'This will be a positive signal and regional tensions will reduce,' he said, adding a good atmosphere will be created to take things forward.
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Qureshi said there had been certain developments in the past 48 hours that Pakistan thinks augur well for the situation.
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One of these developments was External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's comment that India had not given Pakistan any ultimatum with regard to the Mumbai terror attacks, he said.
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'Neighbours can't solve problems through ultimatums. Problems can be solved only through dialogue in a peaceful atmosphere,' Qureshi said.
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Another positive development was the direct contact over the weekend between the Directors General of Military Operations of the two countries as this will also help reduce tensions, he said.
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Qureshi said Pakistan would cooperate fully with India once it shared evidence and information regarding the Mumbai attacks. India has asked Pakistan to crack down on these elements but Islamabad has said it cannot push forward its own investigation till New Delhi shares evidence and information on the terrorist incident.
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Qureshi praised China, saying Beijing had backed Pakistan's approach of constructive engagement and made it clear that conflict is not in the interest of anyone.
China had also backed Pakistan's proposals to send a high-level delegation to India to defuse tensions and for a joint investigation of the Mumbai incident.
The Chinese and US governments too had been in touch with India and Pakistan to de-escalate the situation in the region. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had spoken to Zardari on phone over the past two days to help defuse situation, Qureshi said.
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Senior Pakistani officials too held meetings with their US counterparts in Washington and presented the country's view on the situation that had arisen after the Mumbai attacks.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Drums of War in the Indian subcontinent
The last couple of days have seen a rapid deteoiration on the Indo-Pak border. What is worrying is that this is happening under the radar - low key with a mention here or two in the press. The drums of war are more sinister when they are silent. If the nincompoop sardar and his rajmata decide to drag india into an useless and un-necessary war with Pakistan, we can add one more failure to their laundry list of disasters.
For right now it is the steady beat of the war drum that is worrying. The Indian Air Force has started recoinnasance of the Pakistani Air Space and the Indian Army's integrated war divisions and Quick Reaction teams are being deployed to the border.
It is worrisome sign that this time the drum beat is steady and not a loud noise as it was during Operation Parakaram after the Parliament attack. Then the NDA Government clearly mobilized in the open, thereby inviting International diplomacy to play a role in cooling down temperatures. Now India is mobilizing in the quiet and this is the most disconcerting sign of all. It means that the Army and Air Force have recieved clear orders for striking and this is not a march past.
Add to this is the steady misinformation that our public is being fed upon - suddenly Pakistani Army regulars are being "caught" in Kashmir our press is full of stories that Pakistan is mobilizing its troops and officers on the Indo-Pak border. All these are steps a country takes to convince its population that they are under imminent threat and use that excuse to attack Pakistan.
There is absolutely no reason for India to up the ante right now. The Pakistani Government is not behind the Mumbai blasts - because - it has no reason to do so. Mr 10% ruling islamabad and the weakened Pakistani Military have no apetite for war and hence no rational for instigating the Mumbai attacks that seem to be raison d etere for our Congress party and its corrupt leadership to push india towards brinkmanship.
Also the fact is that while India holds a commanding edge over Pakistan, this will be a bloody war if it happens. India does not have the wherewithal to launch limited strikes because of Geographic proximity and same generation military technology. Even the Israeli - Hizbollah war wasnt a cake walk for Israel and Pakistan is no Hizbollah and India (with all due respect) does not run a war machine as efficient as the Israelis.
For example we do have superiority in the Air Force but we do not have sufficent ECW measures to prevent substantial aircraft losses from SAM and Air defence. Would we lick the PAF - Yes. Would we suffer a lot of damage - probably Yes
We are at a position where we just need to sit tight and Pakistan will keep going down the drain in the fight between the Punjabi Military and their Pushton rivals in the NWFP. We do not need to enter a fight right now. We need to let them fight each other out. It is true that Pakistan does host Allah's murderers like Maulana Azhar. But do we need a 1 million army to take out one guy? Cant we fly a cruise missile and take him out and Dawood. What about Pakistani moles inside our country that seem to infest our film, press and NGO structure? Cant our intelligence assasinate one or two of these loathsome anti-national ISI sponsored characters and send a strong message to the hate india crowd. Why do we need to go to a war to risk millions of lives.
The reason is simple. The Rajmata wants Yuvraj to be the next PM of india. The sorry bunch that constitutes the Congress party is no different from the British Raj that ruled india. They need to be booted out.
I do hope I am wrong and common sense prevails. We do what is needed in a covert manner and do not go into a useless war that is un-winnable and frankly un-necessary!!<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->ISLAMABAD -The government has finally abandoned the visionary programme of four world-class foreign universities that were to be established in partnership with foreign countries, The Nation has learnt reliably.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Joe Biden to visit Pakistan to defuse tension</b> link
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: United States vice-president-elect Joseph Biden will arrive in Pakistan on a two-day visit this week to defuse the tension between Pakistan and India after the Mumbai terror attacks, a private TV channel reported on Sunday.
<b>The channel quoted diplomatic sources as saying that a high-level congressional delegation would also accompany Biden. </b>
The delegation would meet President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to discuss the war on terror in Pakistan, Pak-India relations and <b>a $15 billion aid package for Islamabad</b>.
The sources said the US delegation is likely to arrive in Pakistan on January 9.
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Zardari and Biden, Ram milai jori.
if India do bum bum in Pakistan, India will also get Aid. Number according to Paki Math will be 15 B x 10 = 150 Billion. Not bad.
India should move to Paki defination of IT (International Terrorsim) it pays well.
<b>Pak's NSA sacked for comments on Kasab's nationality</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Gilani was quoted by Geo News channel as saying that he had sacked Durrani for commenting on the issue of the nationality of Iman alias Ajmal Kasab without taking him (Gilani) or the government into confidence.
The premier told the channel that Durrani's 'irresponsible' comments had affected Pakistan's image and went against the government's policies<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Chief of al Qaeda in Pakistan and lieutenant killed by US drone attack </b>
The head of al Qaeda in Pakistan and his lieutenant were killed in the past few days, a US counter-terrorism official told AFP late on January 8, reportedly struck by a missile fired from an unmanned drone, Dawn reported. The men are believed to be <b>Kenyan national Usama al-Kini, described as al Qaeda''s chief of operations in Pakistan and his lieutenant Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan</b>. "There is every reason to believe that these two top terrorist figures are dead," said an unnamed source, adding that the duo was killed "within the last week." The counterintelligence source did not say how the men died, but according to Washington Post, which first reported the story, the duo was killed in a January 1 missile attack near Karikot in South Waziristan. The militants died after being struck with 45 kilo Hellfire missile fired from a pilot-less Predator drone operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, Washington Post reported.
Officials believe al-Kini was behind the September 2008 car bombing of Islamabad''s Marriott Hotel that killed 60 people. He is also linked to a suicide attack on late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto''s convoy as it traveled through Karachi upon her arrival in Pakistan on October 18, 2008. <b>The two men are also on the FBI''s most wanted list for links with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa.</b>
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<b>Hangu sectarian violence intensifies further </b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->KOHAT: The death toll in the ongoing battle between two rival groups in Hangu city crossed 26 and was still rising on the second consecutive night of fighting on Saturday.
Officials and locals feared the death toll would sharply rise now since the Taliban had also joined the battle and were attacking areas in Hangu bazaar with heavy weapons, despite a curfew and shoot to kill orders.
Six dead bodies of protesters killed on Friday night were brought to Kohat on Saturday evening and buried in Ustarzai Town. One of them could not be identified, since he was a traveler and non local. People buried him along with the other dead.
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happy days are here again. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
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