U.S. officials are trying to persuade Pakistani and Indian leaders to ease their tensions and explore common interests. Pakistan, for instance, persists in refusing to let India trade goods with Afghanistan across Pakistani territory. As a result, India is seeking an alternate trade route through the port of Chabahar in southern Iran. By any rational measure, Pakistanis should see an impending India-Iran alliance as a much bigger threat than expanded India-Afghanistan trade; but, in this sense, they’re not acting in their own best interests.
Knowing the full nature of a problem isn’t the same as knowing how, or having the ability, to solve it—just as, on a more strictly military level, having talented commanders and a smart strategy doesn’t necessarily mean the war will be won. In both cases, lots of factors are simply out of any outsider’s control. And, in this part of the world, we are realizing more and more just how much we are outsiders.
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