Print Line

Print Line

Siamese twins no longer

Visit Musharraf later
President Bill Clinton should make one more New Year's resolution: Stop thinking of India and Pakistan as Siamese twins. These two nations were separated at birth on August 15, 1947. Today, India has one foot firmly planted in the 21st century; Pakistan has both feet planted in the past.During the Cold War, Pakistan was the darling of the United States. But a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union and with the emergence of pro-Western Indian governments, it is time Washington ends its policy of treating these two countries as if they were of equal geopolitical importance.

India is set to become a major regional power with the ability to influence events throughout Asia. Should China become expansionist, India will be the only country that America can count on to act as a counterweight. On the other hand, Pakistan has alienated everyone in the neighbourhood by training and supporting the Taliban militia, whose tactics have alarmed India,Iran, Russia and the former Soviet Central Asian republics. Even China, Pakistan's ``most reliable and trusted friend,'' does not relish becoming a victim of Islamic fundamentalism in its Muslim-majority Xingxiang province.

Mr Clinton is eager to visit India and he should go. He should also make a separate, later trip to Pakistan. Only then can the United States develop policies which recognise that India and Pakistan share a past but face very different futures.

-- Stanley A. Weiss in the `International Herald Tribune', January 28.

Star Wars once again
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching Sputnik I, the first-ever satellite. Two months later, the United States responded by trying to launch its own satellite. And it failed: the Vanguard missile exploded on its launchpad, raining debris and flaming propellant. Yet, even as newscasts showed Vanguard's burning hulk, the Eisenhower administration quietly recommitted the nation to the conquest of space. Weeksafter the Vanguard fiasco, the US satellite Explorer I arched skyward aboard another, cheaper rocket that hadn't even been designed for the satellite launch. Slightly more than a decade later, Nasa astronauts were playing golf on the moon.

Talk to advocates of a national missile defence programme (NMD the new, scaled-down name for what was once the Strategic Defense Initiative and you hear many references to the Vanguard explosion. NMD proponents admit that anti-missile tests so far have been underwhelming. But once the president gives the green light to a full-scale missile defence effort, they insist, all that will change -- just as the worthless Vanguard gave way to the magnificent Apollo.

The green light could come as early as this summer. President Clinton has promised to decide by then whether to start building a limited anti-missile system that could, in theory, be deployed by 2005. He should resist the pressure from Congress and his own party and refuse. The reason is simple: There is noremotely feasible anti-missile system to build. To begin production now would waste a colossal amount of money and deceive the American people.

-- Editorial in `The New Republic', February 2