With President Obama in the midst of a state visit to India and struggling mightily to defend his administration’s close ties to the Pakistani government, officials are also heading to Pakistan in an effort to reassure them about the close ties with India.
In particular, Pakistanis are expressing major concern about rumors that the US is going to ask India to commit group troops to Afghanistan, a serious concern for Pakistan but also a plausible report given India’s close ties with the Karzai government.
Though never particularly stable, Pakistan has long seen Afghanistan as their “fall-back point” in the event of a major war with India, and a place for the troops to retreat to when the going gets rough.
This has led to major consternation in Pakistan as India has cozied up to the Karzai government, and has even been identified as the source of some efforts by Pakistan’s intelligence community to support the insurgency.
The rumor about Indian group troops may well be just that, a rumor, but it underscores the seriousness with which Pakistan regards the goings on in Afghanistan, and has become yet another complicating externality to the mess that is the US-led occupation.
The posting of Indian troops to Afghanistan would be met with hostility by the majority Pashtun tribes. Lest we forget, Karzai was a stooge of Rabbani/Massoud both of whom were closely allied and linked to the Soviet occupiers, as well as to Iran and India. During the era of the USSR, India was firmly in bed with Moscow and thus supportive of their war in Afghanistan. Through Massoud, they pursued a pro/Moscow agenda, supplying weapons and providing support to the traitorous Massoud who posed as a "Freedom Fighter" but in actuality covertly attacked other resistance groups that were attempting military engagement against the Soviet occupiers.
Indians are smarter than to fall for Obama's encouragement to put Indian boots into Afghanistan. The only way Indian boots will get to Afghanistan is with Americans wearing them.
India will not commit troops to Afghanistan. They already have plenty of problems of their own. Any body bags of their soldiers coming from Afghanistan will never be tolerated. This is not India's war.
but it is a smart strategy to sell more arms to india. Begin by kissing the asses of fascist castes that comprise the indian elite