Our long-term focus on Middle-Eastern peace is admirable. But we seem to have focused on it to the exclusion of peace in other parts of the world. So for today I'm hoping to focus your attention on peace between India and Pakistan.
This diary was inspired, in part, by this article in the NY Times, "Pakistan Tries to Curb Militant Groups". Peace between India and Pakistan is a vital part of our goal of defeating the Taliban and crushing Al Qaeda.
Pakistan has more potential to be a peaceful, majority-Muslim democracy than Iraq does. It has a legal system based upon English common law and still largely cleaves to it (though there is a large faction that believes in a bastardized version of Shari'a law). There are ways we can support Pakistan (ways that Dubya never contemplated).
The biggest contention between India and Pakistan is the geographic area known as Kashmir. India and Pakistan reject each other's respective claims to the region. The reality is that this is an ideological proxy war. To boot, these nations are both nuclear armed. Now. Not in some nebulous future. Now.
We need to start working on this problem now. Peace between India and Pakistan would enable Pakistan to stabilize itself. This would drive Al Qaeda and the Taliban out of Pakistan and deny them their safe havens thereby allowing us to destroy both organizations. In turn, this would allow our infrastructure projects in Afghanistan to take hold and thus provide the foundation needed for a stable Afghani government.
It won't take place overnight. It'll probably take a decade, if not more. But we must start as soon as possible. The world depends on it.