The Hindu news feed reports :
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.
Tags: India, Pakistan, terrorism, US
So, its been more that 5 years since US invaded Iraq and brought down Saddam Hussein. So what if they didnt find the WMD’s , Uncle Sam saved poor Iraqis from a dictator. Well, I dont want to get into all that – its been done too many times and its futile now.
Luckily for Iraq, Obama is clearly living up to his compaign promise of pulling out the troops from Iraq. Iraq might still be a violent place but mind you,, its much better than a year back. The security situation is getting better and the Iraqi security forces, trained by the coalition, would now be in charge of the security of this fragile country.
In the aftermath of America’s decision to pull out of Iraq, it was the Iraqi response that was interesting. Nouri Al Maliki clearly seems confident that his forces will be more than upto the task. But there is also a touch of arrogance. From the way the prime minister has been talking, one would be easily fooled into thinking that their own security forces have everything under control. I agree that they are a proud people who will not rain flowers on the departing forces. But I cant help thinking that the departure of US forces may not be the ideal thing for Iraq.
With so many guerilla groups still active in the country, its only be a matter of time before the security forces face multiple problems like a spike in militancy, traitors in its ranks. It will be a testing time for the country and the way it deals with it would define its future. Iraq holds its destiny in its own hands. It got what it wanted – exit of the coalition forces. And now it needs to brace itself for the tough times ahead.
Thinking about it in retrospect now, the world would have been such a better place if the US has just left Iraq alone. Thats the beauty if retrospect thinking 
Tags: Iraq, terrorism, US
