I read your column. I like your column. But I constantly read things in it that make no sense. Case in point: the alleged "cultural links associated with their past experiences within the British empire."

If this is the case, then the United States, Pakistan and India would ALL have a lot in common with each other and with Kashmir, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, etc. -- and all these countries would have lots of common ground.

Which obviously is a crock.

I sometimes think Mr. Rothkopf just dashes off this crap and doesn't give a thought to whether any of it makes any sense at all.

This, like most of yours, is an informative column. Except for the India/US relations because of the British Empire. Considering the US left before 1800 in a war and India peacefully left after WW II, I don't think that point really has anything whatsoever to do with this deepening alliance. It's like he looked at that sentence and thought, every sentence like this has 3 reasons, I'm gonna go for 4!, and threw an extra one in there.

Other than that, I would agree with most points. I think the two leading democracies thing is probably the closest point of approach for these two nations. Showing off that democracies work and work together to better both countries and all that. Not too mention the whole keep China looking both directions, thereby lessening the chance of a confrontation over Korea as Kim Jong Il comes closer to dieing, or Taiwan at any time. That and the other article up here about how Afghanistan is becoming India's problem as the US/ISAF pulls out. I'm sure that was brought up at closed door sessions, as in, India asking the US how they are going to help to make sure Pakistan doesn't become de facto ruler of Afghanistan.

Rothkopf offered a tortured gloss on the ancient diplomatic principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Nothing new about that Nothing necessarily sinister, either.

Clinton’s assertions of standing by India on the issue of externally-sponsored terrorism are no longer believable. Such declarations of empathy with India, accompanied with finger-wagging meant to scare Pakistan, have now become a routine affair. Every time terrorists bomb a city or carry out a horrible attack, the same statement is recycled along with the same ‘warning’ to Pakistan.

The real issue is about the Nuclear Suppliers Group craftily shifting the goal posts yet again to deny India uranium enrichment and reprocessing technology, which flies in the face of the ‘clean waiver’ that America had brandished as a huge concession made specially for India by the NSG at the US’s behest. In other words, after sweet talking India into agreeing to restrictive conditions and appending its signature to the civil nuclear cooperation agreement, the US has stepped aside and allowed the NSG, without even so much as a murmur of protest, to reframe the rules of the game.

Who will protect India’s interests in NSG and against US? Surely not the naïve Prime Minister Singh or foreign minister Krishna!

I don't get this: what is the innovation here?

Bush drew us closer to India, Obama has somewhat continued this. Pakistan has been playing a double game forever, the only difference is they feared Bush enough to keep it under the radar; no one, except perhaps the tens of millions of unemployed Americans, fears Obama...

While the US-Pakistan relationship seems novel now, where Pakistan is one of America's key allies and biggest threats, such relationships seem likely to increase. In a longer-term historical sense, such relationships aren't exactly rare. After the Soviet Union ceased to be an American ally in any sense, we didn't have any because the world was so polarized by the Cold War. Before the Cold War, however, alliances were rarely as clean as they were during that period. Now that the Cold War global system is unraveling, such ambiguous relationships are likely to become commonplace.

The problem is that Pakistan itself is dysfunctional, and hence it is hard to have a functional relationship with it.
For all intents and purposes, Pakistan is under total administrative control of its army, and its army in turn is under total control of the ISI (Pakistan intelligence service).
The so-called "civil Government" exists only as a facade for the western world to labor under the illusion that they dealing with a "democracy". The common people on the other hand, are under total control of the mosques and the mullahs (Islamic priests). The civil courts and laws rarely matter, other than to provide secure employment for relatives of the mullahs (priests) and the army. The army gets its legitimacy to rule by terrifying the people of the ever-present "Indian threat"; The Mosque and the priests get their legitimacy to rule by terrifying the people of the "American" and the "Jew" threat. Without the Indian, American and Jew threat, Pakistan will simply disintegrate into various nations since none of the major ethnicities of Pakistan (Punjabis, Pushtoons, Mohajirs, Sindhis and Baluchis) have any interest in the concept of "Pakistan".
Hence by its own underlying constitution, Pakistan HAS to be at war with America, India and Jews in order to survive... Which makes the prospect of a functional relationship with America (Or India), a little complicated.
On the other hand, these core principles of Pakistan (i.e. Its war with India, America and Jews) makes China its closest ally since China is the logical nemesis of America in the grander scheme of things. Which in turn brings India close to the American camp since China's key goal in Asia is to see India diminished. One rather humorous example of how these global fault lines are playing out is when China attempted to form its "String of Pearls" to militarily surround India by establishing naval bases in Pakistan, Srilanka, Bangladesh and Burma. India got alarmed and joined USA, Japan, Korea, ASEAN and Australia to form the "Ring of Freedom" around China...

Several Princely States acceded to Pakistan after Pakistan's Independence. Many Royal Families were deprived of their royal titles not long after that, many in 1969. Now this accession can be put into question. The erstwhile royal families can claim, that at the time of Independence, the Founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah gave their fathers an assurance that everything would be done for the welfare and prosperity of their states and subjects. And since Pakistan has done nothing of the sort, the areas of erstwhile princely states having been totally neglected for development, the royal families of the erstwhile states have decided to leave the Union of Pakistan and to look for lexi belle outside it, as independent states, and now they consider the Instruments of Accession to Pakistan as null and void. All the heirs to the thrones of these erstwhile princely states can sign a charter that they will collectively try to regain their Independence. They consider themselves only as titular heads and after the Independence of these states, these would become constitutional monarchies. They would again only be constitutional figure-heads while the various countries would be ruled by democracy - true democracy. They will collectively try to set up their armies and win freedom from Pakistan. Now what would be the use of such a Declaration? Well for one thing it would give Pakistan and Pakistanis the impression that Pakistan is moving towards unraveling rather than towards consolidation. The momentum of unraveling needs to be kept up. Also the various "armies" that can be set up and pledge loyalty to their respective erstwhile princely states, can be useful fifth column in Pakistan for India and others. These armies can be adopted by India, and even others, and thus facilitating an external hand in the events on the ground. These armies can be then replenished with weapons, etc. by India or even by other countries.