When in doubt, blame India is page 1 in Pakistan's 1 page playbook
Pakistan had no choice, but in order to sell it to the public and deflect the anger, the wily general may have used India and its offer to allow use of bases.
In hindsight what India did looks like placing a phony bid on ebay to raise the stakes for Pakistan. But the reality is that Pakistan was the logical choice for this, since they nurtured the Taliban, and know the ins and outs. Another reason, which is a big weakness in the US FP is that it looks for a master servant relationship most of the time, instead of one with mutual respect. In this case Pakistan is the obvious client state, ruled by a general, so it is less messy, in India there will always be debates and accusations.
Pakistan is deeply in debt ($33B) so it is a question of how much not whether. Their Forex reserves have gone up to 3.5B from 800 M a week ago according to India Today, and the hope is that 12B will be written off.
The General is hoping that all of Pakistan's problems will be solved, debt, the jehadis, and Kashmir - in the meanwhile he has a little problem of surviving for the next few months. |
