Is It Past Time To Dump Pakistan And Embrace India?

Yes. And it has been for decades.

Nobody wants Pakistan to move even closer to Beijing or fall under the spell of Riyadh, but we have to be realistic. We cannot remain friends forever with both Pakistan and India.

Up to now, Washington has thought it could play both sides of the street. The CIA, for instance, believed it could work with the ISI against al-Qaeda while the ISI supported other terrorist groups—notably Lashkar-e-Taiba—as they launched horrific attacks against India.

A rising India, however, is beginning to signal it will no longer tolerate America’s own form of double-dealing. Relations between Washington and New Delhi have notably cooled during the Obama administration as it sought to please everyone. Last week, for instance, the Indians stunned Obama by ruling out the American entries in its $10 billion competition to pick their medium multi-role combat aircraft.

Soon, we will have to make our own choice, between the terrorism-sponsoring failed state of Pakistan and the next rising power, democratic India. This should be an easy decision for us.