On the situation in Pakistan and its implications for India, Gautam Sen writes ,“The multitude of radical Islamist factions thronging much of contemporary Pakistan remembered BB’s (Benazir Bhutto’s) previous shenanigans only too well though she had befriended them, sponsoring Taliban rule and jihad against India when in power. True to form, few in India now seem willing to recall her promise to continue her father’s thousand-year jihad against Hindu India. Her clan’s brazen greed is also recalled with stern Islamic distaste, dramatically compounded by her threat to allow the US freedom to intervene militarily against Al Qaeda inside Pakistan itself. The various Islamist factions embedded within the military establishment, including the ISI, could not have been well pleased with her either for engaging in such treasonous chatter...

“The future of Pakistan remains bleak, but the drama that is yet to unfold within harbours serious problems for India and possibly the West, including the US. There is a significant possibility that small groups of Islamic terrorists will plot to inflict serious harm on the West and its citizens, for real and imagined grievances. Some of the likely acts of terror could turn out to be catastrophic because the technology exists to undertake them. The Pakistani military is loath to allow such actions against its erstwhile Western allies, a possibility for which it evidently had made insufficient allowance... But the principle components of the Pakistani military establishment will wish to use the institutionalised societal Islamic ferment within against India.” In part, he says, such an outcome will be a necessity because Islamic terrorism may otherwise turn inwards against domestic privilege or definitively seek out Western targets.

... contd.