Simultaneously, India, which had almost reflexively opposed virtually any major American foreign policy initiative appeared to be changing its orientation. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led regime in India was demonstrating a degree of intellectual flexibility that few regimes in India had ever displayed. Specifically, the BJP-led regime had expressed cautious support for the Bush administration's decision to amend the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty and move toward dramatic cuts in the American nuclear arsenal. Admittedly, the Indian endorsement of the American position was anything but fulsome. Nevertheless, even this limited embrace of an otherwise controversial American strategic shift was quite significant. At another level, unlike many previous regimes, the BJP-led government appeared much more inclined to broaden and deepen military to military contacts with the United States. Even areas of disagreement in Indo-U.S. relations such as those dealing with trade and investment regimes no longer appeared as acrimonious.

These areas of convergence in Indo-U.S. relations have not entirely dissipated after the events of September 11, 2002. However, the clear-cut upswing that was under way has been stunted. After September 11, courting Pakistan has taken on renewed significance in American foreign policy calculations. This renewal has emerged as a direct consequence, ironically enough, because of the General Musharraf's dictatorship's close ties to the now-decimated Taliban regime and also because of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda's ties to segments of Pakistani society and its military. Bluntly put, without Pakistan's cooperation, however grudging, the United States simply cannot hope to sunder the tentacles of terror that engulfed New York and Washington, DC that as September morning. More to the point, those very links may once again re-generate themselves with the aid and connivance of their Pakistani sympathizers.

In pursuing this new relationship with Pakistan clearly American policymakers did not wish to either fundamentally alienate India and its policymakers. To this end, after September 11, the dexterous and smooth-talking American ambassador to New Delhi, Robert Blackwill, sought to allay long-held Indian fears about an American "tilt" toward Pakistan. Blackwill's efforts in New Delhi were proceeding apace quite nicely when two Pakistan-based and supported terrorist groups, the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, who had long been wreaking havoc in the disputed state of Kashmir, launched a brazen attack on the Indian parliament on December 13. Fortunately, through mixture of the quick reflexes of a lowly parliamentary guard and a change in the meeting schedule, the bloody attack ended with a minimum loss of innocent lives. Cell phone records obtained from the terrorists who were all killed in the ensuing gun-battle left little doubt about their provenance.

Unable to continue to duck the responsibility for the murderous activities of these two groups from his own social and faced with unrelenting American, Indian and indeed global pressure, General Musharraf reluctantly shut down the visible operations of these two organizations as he also proceeded to detail hundreds of other Islamic radicals who had thrived amidst the collapse of Pakistan's socio-economic fabric. Nevertheless, no doubt in a nod to the more intransigent elements within his own society not to mention the behemoth military, Musharraf refused to put an end to his country's support for the Kashmiri "freedom fighters", a convenient euphemism for various condotierri still coddled and cared for by the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate of the Pakistani Army.

Now that Musharraf has pursued 's limited crackdown on the Islamic radicals within his country the United States is now urging India to move the troops that it has massed along the Indo-Pakistani border to induce Pakistan to end its support to the terrorists in Kashmir. Such an expectation is not merely unrealistic but also disingenuous. The Indians had few viable options but to resort to a strategy of coercive diplomacy to change the feckless behavior of the Pakistani regime on the Kashmir question. They will, perforce, have to maintain this pressure to ensure that Pakistan finally abandons its mindless support to groups that neither represent the aggrieved Kashmiris nor hold out the promise of a just, fair and negotiated settlement to the long-festering dispute. Any other American policy runs the risk of not only alienating South Asia's most powerful nation but also promises the prolongation of the agony of Kashmir. Worse still, such a policy would also simply prolong the American-led war against terrorism as the groups Musharraf appears intent on supporting are no different from those that tore down the World Trade Center Towers on that fateful September morning.