The Silver Lining of Alarmism

Time to get obscure. I knew my first totally alienating post was going to be about either Canadian or South Asian politics. And here it is… Pakistan news!
Andrew Sprung, filling in for Andrew Sullivan, relays a story about Nawaz Sharif, the former PM, and his brother Shahbaz, Chief Minister of Punjab province, pointing the finger at India in connection with recent bombings in Lahore.
“Nawaz Sharif has said that it is ‘regrettable’ if New Delhi is fanning extremisms inside the country.”
Simply put, this doesn’t make sense.
India’s opposition party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, might be reasonably suspected of stirring up trouble to destabilize Pakistan, but they’re out of power. The governing Congress Party relies on India’s Muslim minority as part of its electoral coalition. Congress backing this bombing would be like the Democrats hiring thugs to burn black churches and gay bars. Add to that Indian PM Manmohan Singh’s consistent cautious restraint on foreign affairs, and Nawaz and Shahbaz don’t exactly have a great case.
I don’t expect the average Pakistani to know the platforms of India’s political parties any more than I would expect an American to know the name of a single Canadian party. But the Sharifs should know better. Which means they see some benefit in spreading this story. Most likely they’re trying to make President Zardari and his Pakistan People’s Party look weak on the India issue, casting their Pakistan Muslim League as the “security vote.”
The obvious reaction is that this is no good, as it’s already hard enough to convince the Pakistani military to spend the aid we give it fighting Islamist insurgents instead of fortifying the Indian border. But it might actually be a positive sign. Pakistan doesn’t exactly have a great track record as far as consistency of elections. The fact that the Sharifs are throwing down dishonest campaign tactics is an encouraging, if somewhat regrettable, sign that they expect this most recent period of democratic government to last long enough for a second election. Cheers to that!