In the past few days, a rather bizarre assessment made by an American risk-advisory agency began doing the rounds. India had given Pakistan a one-month deadline to take serious action against Islamist terrorists on its soil and on December 26 time would run out. On Boxing Day, India would declare war or otherwise begin military operations across the Line of Control and the international border.

The claim was, of course, rubbish. It has been fairly clear since November 26 that the Government of India is not seriously contemplating war. Even talk of surgical strikes and covert operations - so popular among retired Generals and impressionable anchors on television news shows - is grossly premature.

Covert operations will take at least months of planning. They will necessitate the creation of strategic assets within Pakistani territory, and this cannot happen overnight. Second, for surgical strikes and the sort, India needs a serious military hardware upgrade. For instance, it needs high-end unmanned aerial systems such as the Predators that the Americans are deploying in Pakistan's Federally-Administered Tribal Areas.

The new phase of India's weapons purchase programme is just about starting. It will, no doubt, equip India for both conventional and the new type of unconventional wars. The Indian soldier is brave but that does not mean he should be rushed into battle without the best tools at his disposal.

While immediate war is not quite an option, Pakistan is not off the hook either. In many ways, 2009 will be a defining year as the world puts together a strategy for its number one terror sanctuary. There are three issues that India will need to look out for in the coming year. Where appropriate, it must use its diplomatic and other leverage to hasten the process. This, more than war rhetoric on prime-time shows, is what will determine the de-fanging of Pakistan.

First, between 2001 and 2008, the overriding American/Western sentiment vis-à-vis Pakistan has moved from nation-building to containment. It has not quite reached deconstruction - the redrawing of the boundaries of Pakistan - but 2009 could be a crucial year in that regard.

Between 9/11 and now, America has retained its long-term goals - or naïve idealism - of creating a secular society in Pakistan and rolling back the Islamic state, revamping education, and gradually bringing the Army under civilian control. However, these are becoming increasingly marginalised by the compelling short-term goals of bringing stability to Afghanistan and preventing Mumbai-style terror attacks.

The big shift in 2008 was the realisation that the American influence on the Pakistani Army was not merely limited but often non-existent. It is obvious that the Pakistani Army had a role to play in the execution of the assault on Mumbai. It was looking for an excuse - and the series of desperate, provocative and bellicose statements from Islamabad reflects its frustration - to move troops to the Indian frontier, call off operations in FATA and walk out of America's Afghan war.

To be fair, the Pakistani Army may only have wanted a 'conventional' but spectacular terror strike against India and Indians. It is difficult to see a senior General actually sanctioning an attack on an international Jewish target, and bringing the Israel factor into the picture. Perhaps that was an Al Qaeda input into the Mumbai operation.

Three elements in Pakistan - the Army, the Taliba-Al Qaeda combine and the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba - are all using each other. None of the three is in absolute control. This makes the Pakistani Army even more unpredictable. It also terrifies the Americans, who have held the belief, since the Cold War, that they understand and can somehow manage Rawalpindi's top brass. That theory is now obsolete.

Indeed, each time the Tehreek-i-Taliban - the collective of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban groups, based in Pakistan's tribal regions - announces that it will fight a potential Indian invasion shoulder-to-shoulder with the Pakistani Army, it actually enhances the global fear factor.

In the popular perception, the divide between Gen AP Kayani's Army and its jihadi auxiliaries is being erased. This will make Washington, DC, far less trustful of the one institution in Pakistan that it thought was cynical but ultimately rational - the military.

Second, in 2009, it will lead America to redouble its search for alternatives to Pakistan. The immediate exploration will be for a viable supply line for American troops in Afghanistan that is independent of Pakistani territory. As President Barack Obama begins his own surge in Afghanistan and pours in 30,000 more troops there, with the promise of more coming, the logistics conundrum will become even bigger.

There is talk of supplies through Turkey, Central Asia and Russia, but these are early days in what will be a very complex supply chain. An easier option is working with Iran. For that to happen, Iran will have to stop short of actually building a nuclear bomb. Much will depend on whether President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is defeated in the November 2009 election and replaced by a moderate.

It is important that Tehran and Washington, DC, find honourable escape routes, walk back from their positions and begin to engage, even if tactically. They have common interests and can form useful local partnerships in the Afghanistan-Pakistan belt and even in Iraq. India has been a go-between in the past and is a natural candidate for that role in a possible post-Ahmadinejad era.

Third, India has to come up with big picture ideas on the future of Pakistan. If, for instance, it can produce credible logic for breaking up Pakistan and explain why this will make the region safer and more stable, it will find more listeners today than ever before. However, the argument has to be based on more than wishful thinking and emotion.

With even Peshawar vulnerable, vast parts of the North-West Frontier Province have irretrievably slipped from Islamabad's grasp. The territorial boundaries of a notional 'Pashtunistan' have been defined. The question is, will it be a Taliban-ruled emirate or a satellite subsidised by India and America, and ruled by a Hamid Karzai type of leader?

If the focus on the Afghan-Pakistan war begins to pay dividend in 2009 and results in military successes, the Americans could begin thinking of a post-conflict political settlement of the Pashtun question. India must be ready to nudge the conversation in a direction of its choosing.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, December 27, 2008