Vinod Mehta is the Editor of Outlook magazine in India. He has a string of successful newspaper launches behind him and is one of the more sober writers in South Asia. 'Let Us Defy Uncle Sam' is a rather unlikely op-ed from him. If he is thirsting for first strike by India, things must be really on thin ice out there. He did admit that the Pakistani junta is crazy enough to threaten a nuclear first strike, but didn't address the issue. Neither are Indian politicians taking the noises being made by Pakistan very seriously. This story in Atlantic monthly is a frightening reminder that some people out there may have gone over the edge. What is scarier is that out esteemed leaders (no dearth of whackos on our side either) seem to have no clue.

The tragedy in South Asia is a tragedy of leadership. India has a relatively open society and more stable democratic institutions that have withstood the passage of time with much less damage. But something seems to have gone wrong with Pakistan. I don?t think everyone in Pakistan is an Islamic fanatic. I was rereading an old interview of Asma Jahangir. She appeared to be a lot more sane than most of our politicians. But unfortunately, she is not representative of the Pakistani polity. These comments by Michael Schaffer captures my unease:

"In 50 years of independence, Pakistan has come up with no new heroes. OK, there's a stadium that's been renamed after an officer who died in the disastrous mini-war with India a few years back, but if you look at the rupee bills, you see only one face: Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founder. And I can't think of anyone else who might make it. The only other icon that seems to resonate, ultimately, is the giant rock that finds itself in traffic circles around the country: a scale model of the mountain under which Pakistan carried out its test nuclear explosion.".

These guys have invested way too much of their emotional selves on the conflict with India.