Like has been the case throughout the Mumbai siege there are conflicting messages including that the Indian air and missile forces where placed on war footing today. The last straw for the Indian government, it says here, was the admission by Azam Amir Kasab, aged 21, the only terrorist known to have been captured by Indian forces, that Lashkar e-Taiba was behind the assault which claimed 174 lives, injured hundreds and devastated India's financial capital. As indicated by us on some days ago, this Kashmiri group has links to both al Qaeda and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

While it retains the option of amassing troops along the Indo-Pakistani border and possibly conducting cross-border raids against militant training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, thus building up a crisis with Islamabad, the Pakistani government is now at its weakest point politically, militarily and economically. This is of enormous concern to the United States, which at the very least needs Islamabad to hold itself together in order to make progress on the counterterrorism front in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

But no amount of political musical chairs is likely to satisfy the Indian public and the hard-line Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Moreover, dismissing senior members of the government most intimately familiar with the current situation might be politically necessary, but it could undermine continuity of policy, particularly when there are enormous inefficiencies already inherent in the creation of large federal entities. It could be that the government is awaiting more concrete evidence of a Pakistani link before it ratchets up tensions, but from where things stand now, pressure is building up inside India against a ruling party that has long been accused of being “soft on terrorism.”

The main opposition Hindu nationalist BJP is ready to pounce and retake the government. Already the BJP has run a number of front-page advertisements in major Indian newspapers accusing the ruling Congress party coalition of its failure to defend the nation. One such ad appeared on a blood-red-stained background with the message, “Brutal terror strikes at will. Weak government. Unwilling and incapable. Fight terror - Vote BJP.” The next few days will be critical as the BJP looks for the most optimal time to make its move against the government to bring on early elections. It must also be remembered that the BJP and its Hindu nationalist affiliates have ties to a number of activists reeling from the Mumbai attacks. These could easily be used to start riots inside India to put more pressure on the ruling Congress party (a tactic that Islamist militant groups operating in India have long hoped to trigger). The BJP has also condemned Congress for trying to get the Pakistani ISI chief to come to India, saying, “Inviting ISI for probe is like handing over treasury keys to the thief.”

And the Indian government, obviously must respond. It does not have the option of simply moving past the event. The Indians’ two responses must be blaming themselves for poor security or blaming the attacks on a foreign power —obviously Pakistan. Both of these could be true, but emphasizing one would probably bring down the Indian government, while emphasizing the other would allow the government to deflect responsibility to Pakistan, a country neither liked nor trusted in India. The charge would not necessarily be that the Pakistani government, or even elements of the government, planned the attack. The charge would be that the Pakistani government failed to act decisively to prevent the attack. In other words, the attack took place because the Pakistanis have been insufficiently aggressive in bringing radical Islamist forces in Pakistan under control.

This is, of course, the same charge the Americans have been making against Pakistan and one of the foundation stones of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s foreign policy. He has said that he would place heavy pressure on the Pakistanis to get them to be more effective in fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban. Indeed, Obama has said he would be sending more troops to Afghanistan and would expect Pakistani cooperation.

It is not clear what India will do precisely in this crisis. In 2001, when the Indians were responding to another terrorist attack, it took them about a week to decide what to do and they then sent forces to the Pakistani border. The tension escalated to include nuclear threats. If that model is followed here, we might well be in an intense crisis in a week or so, although reports of intense political infighting might delay a response. The Pakistanis will try to head it off by offering full cooperation with India in dealing with the problem, but it is not clear that the Indian public or politicians will accept this. It will be regarded as an ineffectual gesture by many if not most. From where we sit, Pakistan will have to confront India with more than an agreement to increase cooperation.

That places Pakistan between two very powerful forces: India and the United States. Pakistan has already indicated what it might do, saying that if India increased its forces along the border, Pakistan would shift 100,000 troops to the border as well — all of them drawn from its border with Afghanistan. In other words, Pakistan has let the United States know that Indian pressure will result in a reduction of Pakistani forces along the Afghan border, while the United States is demanding that the number of forces there actually be increased. That in turn would create a crisis in Pakistan’s relations with the United States.

Pakistan’s other option is to take effective action against Islamists along both its borders. The problem is that it is not clear that the Pakistani government could do it even if it wanted to. There are elements in the Pakistani intelligence service that would potentially sabotage any move in this direction, and there is widespread opposition among the Pakistani public to any crackdown. If the Pakistani government attempted it, it is not clear that Pakistan would not fracture and dissolve into chaos.

The attackers, whoever they ultimately turn out to be, are clearly not stupid. They were less interested in killing people in Mumbai than in creating precisely this crisis. First, the Pakistanis are trapped between the United States and India. Second, the government can either turn on the Islamists, unleashing chaos, or refuse to do so, creating an international crisis. In the event of chaos, whoever organized the attack is in a position to increase their influence in Pakistan. In the event the government refuses to act, it will increase its dependence on radical Islamists. In either case, the attack has set into motion a process that could increase the influence of Islamists in Pakistan.

The alternative is for India to let the attacks pass without generating a crisis with Pakistan. The problem with that strategy is not only internal Indian politics. It is also the fact that there is no reason to believe that attackers don’t have the ability to mount more attacks in India. There is no way for the Indians to block these attacks, and if such attacks were to continue, the Indian government would not only lose further credibility, it would wind up in the same crisis it might wish to avoid now. And no one knows what follow-on capabilities and plans the attackers have.

Conclusion: After the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States went after al Qaeda. In doing so it felt forced to bowl over the government that allowed al Qaeda to prepare for the Sept. 11 attacks: the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Now, India is following identical logic. Just as the Taliban allowed al Qaeda sanctuary (and perhaps even sponsorship), India now charges that Pakistan has done the same for the radical Islamists who attacked Mumbai last week, and thus should be held accountable.

The American problem with this is that the United States would really prefer that Pakistan remain in one piece right now. Otherwise, at a minimum, the hunt for al Qaeda would need to be suspended as Pakistan shifts forces to defend against India; at a maximum, the American forces in Afghanistan (and dependent upon Pakistan for resupply) could have front row seats in a nuclear exchange. It is difficult to envision a scenario in which the United States gets what it wants.

New Delhi is not interested in any major escalation and would likely prefer to limit the strikes to Pakistan-administered Kashmir, where groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba are based.

For updates click homepage here