Exercise great caution in playing the "India card" (July 14th 2012) Exercise great caution in playing the “India card” (July 14th 2012)

Robert L Grenier the American former CIA director of counter-terrorism who was dismissed from the position, and now Chairman of ERG Partners, an independent financial and strategic advisory firm focusing on the security and intelligence sectors, has released an article on Aljazeera discussing implications of the USA playing the ‘India card’ in Afghanistan. Grenier states “Involving India in the US war in Afghanistan could further polarise Pakistan and turn the country into a proxy war. …US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta’s visit to New Delhi, in which he pressed the Indians to raise their level of engagement in Afghanistan. No longer satisfied simply with Indian provision of economic and development assistance, the American defence chief indicated he would like to see India engaged with Afghan security forces as well. In so saying, he was apparently not unmindful of how this message would be received in Islamabad. …But the US government should know that to the extent it is successful in pressing India into high-profile security engagement in Afghanistan, the more likely it is to produce the very situation it fears most: A renewed Afghan civil war in which India and Pakistan are actively engaged in support of their respective proxies, and in which Islamabad’s ties to the Taliban are strongly reinforced. …it should likewise exercise great caution in playing the “India card” in Afghanistan.”

 

Inspired by Aljazeera http://ow.ly/c4ZtK image source University of Delaware ow.ly/c4Zpk