Mumbai attacks: consequential and shrewd

The more I think about them (and write about them, which to me is a bit like breathing for normal people) the more I think the terrorist attacks in Mumbai Nov. 28 were the most consequential and shrewd actions by the jihadist movement (whatever the true perpetrators turn out to be) since the 9/11 attacks in the United States. Pakistan and India had been edging toward something approaching a rapprochement, but that's off the table for quite a while. It will intensify Indian-Pakistani hostility, always bubbling under the surface, introduce or intensify divisions in India and perhaps destabilize the shaky Pakistani civilian government, such as it is. And it complicates things in Afghanistan.

Here's the piece I did on the attacks for Antiwar.com. And here's the Register's editorial on the attacks, which ran yesterday.