There is no way to dodge the wages of indiscretion: Pakistan is currently in the process of grasping that lesson. It was one of the earliest countries to opt for the bondage of strategic alliance with the United States of America. Half a century later, the apparatus of decision-making, and not just in defence matters, is no longer in the control of the country’s nominal rulers. It is now too late for them to try to reclaim the sovereignty of their nation.

The fight against what it loves to describe as global terror is a total war to the US administration. National frontiers are irrelevant in the conduct of this war. As in Iraq, the much-touted invasion forces in Afghanistan too have been of little avail. The Taliban were driven out of the main towns, Kabul and Kandahar were ‘captured’ by American troops, a puppet government was duly installed. None of this has disturbed the underpinning of reality. The Taliban reorganized themselves in no time. They are once more omnipresent, here, there and everywhere, in Afghanistan. The Hamid Karzai regime has only a token presence in Kabul. Even the capital’s thoroughfares do not offer safe pasture to either American personnel or US-leaning members of the diplomatic corps though.

Emulating the Americans, the Taliban too have learnt to penetrate formal national borders; they have infiltrated, extensively, into Pakistan. Peshawar, in any case, has remained a free bazaar for AK rifles and similar other accoutrements of warfare for at least a score of years. Besides, the growth of indigenously nurtured anti-American sentiment has been inevitable in the wake of the US administration’s grand declaration of the resolve to obliterate Islamic terror. With every emerging story of American atrocities in Iraq or Afghanistan, emotions surge a little further in Pakistan. The entire country is now not far from being a cordial reception centre for eager beaver Taliban zealots. Scratch a Pakistani mind: one half of it leans in the direction of liberal democracy and the lure of material comforts snuggling up to Americans can supply, the other half is ideologically identified with the Taliban and jumps in joy as tidings reach of Americans receiving a bloody nose in any part of the world.

The Americans, for understandable reasons, are not prepared to put up with this kind of situation. As Pakistanis slowly feel their way towards establishing a functional democracy, strategists work overtime in Washington DC, to take cognizance of the new realities unfolding in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad; Peshawar perhaps has long since been written off as a lost cause.

Why flinch from facing facts — most Pakistanis would like to turn a Nelson’s eye on Taliban infiltration into their territory. Some latent sympathy for the Taliban cause apart, they do not quite grasp the rationale of fighting other people’s war. The Americans at the other end are not prepared to put up with any defiance of the covenants of the strategic alliance sealed long years ago. They have a number of ‘advisory’ kind of military and air force installations on the soil of Pakistan. Once convinced that Taliban hordes have crossed the border and are operating from within Pakistan, they cannot be deterred from launching a merciless counter-attack without caring a bit about Islamabad’s susceptibilities. Pervez Musharraf could be Pakistan’s all-power dictator courtesy Foggy Bottom; Ten Per -cent Zardari has recently been installed as the country’s president again only after his name was cleared with the US administration. Both civil and military authorities in Pakistan may, for the sake of form, post squeaky protests against American violation of their national sovereignty. They, however. know their protests are for the birds. The Americans mean business, and they are conversant with the fine print of the strategic alliance. It is again a historical process that has taken over. Give or take another five years, Pakistan would be as indescribably devastated a land as Iraq or Afghanistan is; global terror calls for global annihilation.

And that is not going to be the end of history. The nuclear deal India’s prime minister has struck with the US president is only a beginning. It will matter little whether in New Delhi the regime is a motley coalition headed by either the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party, the strategic alliance will take its own course. The local subedars will have to fall in with the official American will and endorse perceived American interests as their own. As the years roll by, Talibani penetration into Pakistan is bound to be increasingly more overt. Pakistan will become a replica of Afghanistan — a squalid no man’s land, but on a vastly larger scale; the Taliban’s suicide-bomber squads will compete for superiority with American air and land strikes. Before Indian authorities are even aware of what is happening, advance Taliban units could start operating along chunks of the Pakistan-India border, from the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir down to the Gulf of Kutch. Firmly ensconced in the American camp, New Delhi would not be able to afford not to accept the proposition of global terror being synonymous with Taliban terror and the enemy of the US ipso facto the enemy of India. That is what strategic alliance is about.

Anticipating the sequel is child’s play. Since, by virtue of the strategic alliance, the Taliban would be India’s declared enemy, they could be relied upon to return the compliment. They would now feel no compunction to infiltrate across the Pakistan-India border and set up clandestine dens, let us say, in and around Surat, in and around Amritsar, in and around Doda. India’s official security outfit has been vigorously promoting the thesis of local militants having intimate links with external agents. It would then very nearly be a case of demand creating its own supply; those disgruntled over Kashmir and the demolition of the Babri Masjid would join ranks with the Taliban.

In these circumstances, helmsmen in New Delhi might, on account of domestic political reasons, adopt for some while a Janus-faced stance; the Americans would suffer from no inhibition. They would plan and launch counter-attacks against the Taliban in right earnest from Indian soil, not bothering to take prior sanction from the Indian authorities; the approval would be taken for granted.

Such is the non-enigma of an entente struck between unequal parties. The interpretation of its content by the superior party is what counts. Official American eagerness to enter into alliances of this nature has always been based on the hope of increasing the effectiveness of the war against the global enemy. Fifty years ago, the Soviet Union was that enemy, now it is the Taliban. Once the strategic alliance is safely tucked in, India can hardly avoid being turned into an actual theatre of the global war. That is what transition from non-alignment to alignment spells. The explosions that shook New Delhi in mid-September are only a curtain-raiser. Having demurely subscribed to the catechism that an adversary of the US is our very own adversary, we have to make ourselves ready for enactment of grisly terror in our backyard on a permanent basis. Like revolution, global war against terror is no garden party. And it is going to be a far worse situation if we invite the terror to come and be our guest.