Unintended consequences of Mumbai attacks

Both officials pushed this message in meetings between the officials of both countries and urged constraint before taking any hasty action.

In this regard, Rice also delivered some cautionary words to the Indian leadership. She said any response to the attacks ''needs to be judged by its effectiveness in prevention and also by not creating other unintended consequences or difficulties.

What she meant by "unintended consequences or difficulties" is, of course, the possibility that the current tension might lead to a military confrontation between India and Pakistan, which could make matters worse for the US military in Afghanistan by way of reducing Pakistan's military effort in the border regions.

Aware of this US concern, some official in Pakistan suggested recently that in the event of increased Indian military build-up along their borders, Pakistan would have no choice but to respond in kind by moving extra troops to the border, which in turn means withdrawing elite troops from the Pakistan-Afghan border to the Indian border.

In fact Pakistan's ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, touched upon this possibility and said there is no movement of Pakistani troops right now, but if India makes any aggressive moves, ''Pakistan will have no choice but to take appropriate measures."

As for India, she has not yet made any move to increase its forces along the Pakistani border, but as officials reiterate, they have a right to respond to attacks as they see fit.

In fact, a similar situation to the current one developed a few years ago. Following the Dec. 13, 2001, terrorist attacks on the Indian parliament, tensions between the two nuclear-armed countries flared as India deployed 1 million troops along its western borders with Pakistan, which responded by sending more than 120,000 of its own troops to its eastern borders with India. This move by Pakistan indirectly helped the Taliban and al-Qaeda to regroup and recuperate in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, which is along the western Afghan border.

The military vacuum created by this move has not been filled adequately over the years and both the Taliban and al-Qaeda have taken advantage of it and in turn increased and consolidated their hold over the FATA. That is one of the main reasons we see a resurgence of Taliban and al-Qaeda activity since 2006 with dire consequences for NATO and US forces in Afghanistan.

Fearing that worse developments might unravel if India increases its forces along the Pakistani border to which Pakistan is sure to respond by pulling out some 100,000 troops from the FATA, the US is trying to avert this possibility -- or in the words of Rice, "unintended consequences" -- which could have serious consequences of its own for the war on terror.

A last word in this regard: Maybe the forces that planned the heinous attacks in Mumbai had in mind the very "unintended consequences" the US fears, and if those intentions become reality, they will have reached their goal. Let us hope, caution, calm and above all reason prevails and no more blood is shed.