US Gets Closer To India

It's about time.

“We welcome [India's] playing a more active role in Afghanistan, a more active political and economic role,” an anonymous Defense Department official traveling with Panetta told reporters in India. The Wall Street Journal speculated that the move “may be designed to tweak Pakistan.”

That might be an understatement. “It will add to [Pakistan's] underlying fear that they may be sandwiched by India and an Indian proxy,” says Shuja Nawaz, a South Asia scholar at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “Not a good way of getting them to help with the Afghan transition.”

We have a lot more in common with India than Pakistan. I think it's time to dump Pakistan and put them on the enemies list.