India should be fully prepared for some big initial mistakes by the Obama administration and characteristic over-reach by Pakistan’s generals. Notwithstanding Holbrooke’s flattering remarks that India is central to the resolution of the conflict in the region between the Indus and the Hindu Kush, New Delhi should not forget the significant limitations on its potential role in shaping the internal dynamics of Afghanistan and Pakistan. India must however ensure that the Pakistan army is compelled to fight a war on its western borders that it does not want to. That in turn implies that India should not be used as an excuse to the Pakistan army to shift the international focus on to its eastern frontiers.

That US and India are now talking about Pakistan, for the first time since Partition, is welcome. New Delhi did have some reason to be apprehensive about “reverse pressure” from the US on Islamabad. Yet, unlike in the early 1960s or the early 1990s, India today is much stronger and far less vulnerable to external pressures on Kashmir. As it stays engaged with Holbrooke, New Delhi has no incentive whatsoever to reduce the all-important Af-Pak policy debate to a bilateral problem with either Washington or Islamabad.