This week (Tuesday and Wednesday), Pakistan and India are celebrating their conjoined independence days. Their rivalry has sabotaged India's tryst with destiny as a global power and Pakistan's ambition to be the leading light of the Islamic world. Will 2047 mark 100 years of solitude in bilateral relations on which hinge the fates of all South Asians? Or can they sublimate their conflict to the vision of a future of shared prosperity and stability?
A turnaround in relations will have to be based on a grim appreciation of the costs of continued enmity as weighed against the gains from cooperative friendship. It will also require a quality of visionary national leadership conspicuously lacking today.
The position of Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari is extremely weak and precarious. With real power lying in the hands of the three "Ms" — military, militants, and mullahs — the civilian president and prime minister are of little consequence in setting Pakistan's foreign and security policy. Their weakness is echoed across the border by the most ineffectual prime minister since independence. While Time magazine recently dubbed him an "underachiever," Britain's Independent queried whether he is Sonia Gandhi's poodle.
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