Reasons?

It was a week in which nothing made sense. Bloodshed, mayhem, 24x7 news coverage...Probably only thing expected was the political mud slinging. But beyond the human factor, this incident did not make sense from a geo-political perspective. Pakistan Government or even the ISI would have to be out of their minds to plan such an attack. Attack in the sense, not the scale but the targets.

There have been numerous attacks on Indian soil. Some fronted by home grown terror outfits others by radical organisations outside India.

First of all, we can discount the following allegations:

• Sangh parivar perpetrated the whole thing. (Load of crap!)
• Israel did it! (Like they have nothing else to do!)
• America did it! (Duh!)

What all the current evidences and previous experiences suggest is that the operation was carried out by Lashkar with/without the help of Al Queda. We can also deduce from our experiences that the ISI had some hand or the other in this operation. What was their motivation apart from killing heathens and shaming a heathen state? We just cannot leave it at that conclusion.

All of us start to seeth like rabid dogs when such attacks occur. We bay for the blood of terrorists. But we never look into the strategic or geo-political aspect of such attacks. Lets consider the whole affair from a larger perspective. Lashkar and other militant outfits were primarily based out of Kashmir with the blessings of Pakistan Government and its Army. No body cared when we cried at the terrorists. Then 9/11 came along and the snakes that US bred came back to bite it hard. The "brave mujahideens" turned into the dreaded Al Queda. Finally the west realised its folly and hit back hard. Hit back unnecessarily with a lot of venom. War on Iraq gave practically gifted them a lawless country with lot of fresh, angry, purposeless recruits. Also, it gifted them an even worser lot. Educated, employed, intelligent but extremely disillusioned youths. Now, terrorism became globalised just like the rest of world. Pakistan realised it could never handle Kashmiri militants like they used without inviting the wrath of the US. Naturally the militants madea a liaison with the Al Queda along with the rogue, fundamentalist elements of the Pakistan establishment.

Terrorists or the ones who head them are not idiots. They know that they are fighting a war against a far superior force. They need heavy artillery to move things along. They need missile systems, they need access to a huge army, and above all they need nuclear bombs. Thus, Pakistan becomes a strategically ripe target. Pakistan economy is in a dangerous situation and the state runs of the possibility of becoming bankrupt. Pakistan is going around with a begging bowl for rescue. More specifically, the democratic Government is going around. If the state fails, it will fall to the radical elements. There is no other way to go.

Radical elements need to ensure this downfall. This plan was probably enhanced by this realisation. The terrorists probably were on training for the past one year or so to conduct such an attack. This would have been known to a lot of people in Pakistan as well. May be the entire plot was known only to the trusted people.

Lets see the sequence of action:

• Attack places were it actually hurts the Government
• Attack US and other western citizens
• Attack Jews, so that Israel will be totally against any sort of appeasement

Lets see the reaction:

• India proves that the attack is with the help of Pakistan stops short of attacking it but deals enough damage on a reputation level
  
• US is angered over the loss of life and with Obama coming in the US support of Pakistan will be next to nil
• Israel makes sure that US does not help Pakistan in any way
• Lack of US support makes Saudi Arabia and others hesitant to help Pakistan
• Pakistan falls and the vultures come in to feed

Do we really want a fully mobilised and totally crazy army against us? This is a situation to be dealt with very delicately and with a lot of foresight. I really doubt our leaders have such vision though. I don't want to predict an impending doom, but this certainly looks awfully like one.