SCENARIOS - Assessing risks of India, Pakistan confrontation

  
The diplomatic situation is still evolving two weeks after the Mumbai attack.

Domestic dynamics have to play out in both countries. 
    
With relations still fraught between rivals who have fought three wars, here is a look at some scenarios that could unfold: 
    
War 
    
-Highly improbable. No one, except the militants, would want it. India's foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee has said it is no solution.

The two countries went to the brink in 2002 after Pakistani jihadi groups attacked the Indian parliament in 2001, but ultimately the risk of nuclear conflict made it a crazy option.

Any kind of Indian military action is likely to provoke retaliation, either from jihadis or worse still the Pakistani military.

India's strength lies in its ability to garner international diplomatic support to pressure Pakistan to clean its house of jihadis. 
    
Peace process 
    
A hiatus in the dialogue they began in 2004 is inevitable; India has already said it is in jeopardy.

To move on, India needs Pakistan to seriously crack down on groups analysts say have been favoured by its Inter-Services Intelligence agency. 
    
A sham crackdown like one by then military ruler General Pervez Musharraf in 2002 will satisfy neither New Delhi nor Washington. 
    
That said President-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration is expected to encourage settlement of the Kashmir dispute, a step it also sees as part of the equation to stabilise Afghanistan. 
    
India probably realises it's better to engage Pakistan than ignore it in the long run, and it would like to help civilian leaders establish authority over the generals. 
    
US pressure to move more swiftly in peace talks won't cut much ice with India, so long as it feels uncomfortable about the durability of Pakistan's democracy.

In the short run the Indian government has an election to fight, and will need to show its public results before it re-starts the peace process. 
    
No war, no peace 
    
- If, analysts say, the Pakistani military refuses to abandon old jihadi assets, there will be no war and no peace. Instead there's a real danger both sides could use non-state proxies to destabilise each others' borders.

It would be a return to the pre-2002 era, and the world will be haunted by periodic crises between the nuclear-armed neighbours. 
    
- That, in turn, will complicate the West's efforts to stabilise Afghanistan. Some jihadi groups that had been fighting Indian rule in Kashmir have built ties with al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistani tribal areas, where the Pakistan army is struggling to gain control. 
    
- If these groups are allowed to thrive they will continue to provide gateways for alienated young Muslims in the West to join a global jihad against their own governments 
    
Repercussions for India 
    
With general elections early next year, the government faces widespread voter anger at the security and intelligence failures that led to Mumbai.

The opposition BJP has made it a major campaign issue. 
    
Many analysts expect a backlash against the ruling Congress party in those elections.

But recent state poll wins by Congress, as well as the high-profile appointment of former finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram as the new home minister, have helped take the wind out of the opposition's sails. 
    
The BJP has also been criticised in some quarters as too opportunist in working to make terrorism an election issue so soon after the Mumbai attack. 
    
While the government may be limited in actions over Pakistan, there may be pressure for tougher policies at home, such as an anti-terrorism law that gives security forces more powers to detain and monitor suspects. 
    
So far, the attacks have not sparked communal strife between India's majority Hindus and minority Muslims. India's Muslim community has gone out of its way to criticise the militants. 
    
Repercussions for Pakistan 
    
- Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani's offer on November 28 to send the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency to New Delhi following a request from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went down badly in some quarters of the military.

But since then there has been no indication the civilian government and military leadership are out of step, even if they hold different opinions over whether the jihadis should be protected or dumped.
    
- If the crisis worsened, it might bring any differences into the open, which could be risky for a civilian government less than nine months old and dependent on army support for Pakistan's transition to democracy. 
    
- Pakistan already reels from an Islamist insurgency in the northwest. There are security alerts in its cities. The suicide truck bomb attack that killed at least 55 people at Islamabad's Marriott hotel in September was the kind of spectacular attack not seen before in Pakistan, and raised fears of more. 
    
- A crackdown on militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad based in the central province of Punjab could end up driving more of their fighters into the arms of al Qaeda and the Taliban in the northwest tribal lands. That would reinforce the insurgency in Afghanistan and pose more dangers for Pakistani security forces and cities. 
    
- It is doubtful whether Lashkar or Jaish commanders who haven't gone rogue would order revenge attacks inside Pakistan, as they would still like to preserve relationships with the security agencies, and such action would be counter-productive for them at a time when Pakistani and Indian tensions were high. Source: Reuters