There’s a saying that goes “Waiting for the other shoe to drop.”  I’ve got a feeling that I’ve been watching that shoe for a long time.  Now that the United States has started to go back into “I don’t wanna fight no more” mode on the terrorists, I’m watching the situation in the Hindu Kush mountains and the headwaters of the Indus river in anticipation of a new phase in the conflicts beginning.  It’s quite clear that the Taliban isn’t satisfied with just a few mountains and a valley in northwestern Pakistan: they want the whole region.  The question now remains is “What will India do now that Obama’s America will be sitting there doing nothing?”

   From my reading of history, Afghanistan used to be the seat of an Islamic faction known as the Ghaznavids.  These Turkish warlords dominated the region at about the time of the Crusades, invading northern India and holding a reign of terror which lasted for a hundred years or so.  I can see the Taliban probably having those sorts of ambitions.

   I’m concerned about what this will mean in the long run if Pakistan finally falls and becomes a new base for Taliban and allied Islamo-facist organizations (Al Qaeda and its offspring/siblings).  I’d like to think that modern India has something of a nationalistic instinct which could enable it to pull itself together to face the threat of a nuclear-armed terrorist state on its borders, but there are still a lot of the old problems in place that might prevent this from being effective.  Historically, India has never successfully resisted invasion and occupation from foreigners before (Alexander quit because his army mutinied, the Mongols and Timurids left because they were unused to the weather and the rulers who supervised their invasions died and the Mughals were effectively assimilated into Indian culture in spite of their Muslim origins).