"INDIA AS SCAPEGOAT? The Americans and their NATO allies are evidently looking for scapegoats in case their “exit strategy” fails as it did in Vietnam. India now appears to be the new scapegoat in the event of such failure, as the US and its NATO allies seem to be bent on blaming India, for any failures by them, to deal with the Pakistan army’s support for the Taliban, which could lead to an ignominious exit for them from Afghanistan. In a recent paper published by the Washington-based Brookings Institution William Dalrymple avers: “While most observers in the West view the Afghanistan conflict as a battle between the US and NATO on the one hand and the Taliban and Al Qaeda on the other, in reality the hostility between India and Pakistan lies at the heart of the conflict in Afghanistan”. As a self-styled historian, Dalrymple conveniently forgets that the present AfPak tensions flowed from British colonial policies advocated by Imperialists like Lord Curzon, whose “forward policy” aimed to check growing Russian influence in Central Asia and also give the British undisputed and unchallenged control over the oil resources of the entire Persian Gulf. The problems between Pakistan and Afghanistan since the birth of Pakistan have been primarily because of the past actions of Imperial Britain, as no Afghan Government has ever recognised the borders imposed by Imperial Britain."
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 10:18:33 +0000
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