Speaking to retired civil servants, who met him on Tuesday night to discuss national issues, President Asif Ali Zardari said militants and extremists had been “deliberately created and nurtured” as a policy for “short-term tactical objectives.”“Let us be truthful and make a candid admission of the reality,” the President told the retired federal secretaries and senior bureaucrats.

Seeing that there has been no denial or “I was quoted out of context”, we should believe that Zardari has openly come clean on his country’s behalf. There used to be a time when even a hint of such an admission by a Pakistani official (forget President) was unheard of. It was just something you did not do. India was perceived as, and by many still is, an existential threat.

But (am an optimist) it seems Pakistan has started coming to terms with the real threat – from within. The point is not the origin of the threat ( don’t we know that already), the point is that probably they have started realising it themselves. They too have seen a lot of violence perpetrated by people similar to the guys who they nurtured for “short term tactical objectives”. And it is probably not surprising how they have started cooperating with the US over the drone strikes in the North Western tribal areas. Although the huge amount of “foreign aid” certainly is a major factor behind the perceived increase in cooperation. Its probably also the best way US could get Pakistan to play along – carrot and stick approach.

I am sound cynical, but I wouldn’t read much into this till they actually take some concrete action. India has gotten itself burnt too many times, to get carried away by just another ’statement’. But still, lets ignore the grey cloud for now and look at that really dim (but there ) silver lining.

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