Pakistan still doesn’t realise what the real threat to it is

The New York Times has been briefed by the ISI on the Pakistani perspective on the situation in Afghanistan. The paper’s distillation of what it was told, is depressing reading:

“Pakistani officials have told the Obama administration that the Marines fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan will force militants across the border into Pakistan, with the potential to further inflame the troubled province of Baluchistan, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

Pakistan does not have enough troops to deploy to Baluchistan to take on the Taliban without denuding its border with its archenemy, India, the officials said. Dialogue with the Taliban, not more fighting, is in Pakistan’s national interest, they said.” If the Taliban is to be defeated, it needs to be denied space to regroup and resupply on either side of the border. But that is not going to happen as long as Pakistan remains obsessed with the supposed threat from India.