Mumbai Attacks and their impact

[Bob's World]

Working with the Indians is delicate business for several reasons that make U.S. cooperation with them difficult:
1. They are EXTREMELY sensitive to anything that might be construed as them not being complete peers (regardless of how relatively lacking they may be in the topic at hand).
2. They demand quid pro quo reciprocation on engagement activities. 1 in India, then 1 in the U.S., repeat. While reasonable, our current authorities and funding lines don't support such a cycle.
3. They have a mind numbing bureaucracy. A request for engagement goes into a big folder. That folder then needs to physically move up and back through over 30 in/out boxes from initiation to approval.
4. Huge muslim populace, largest Shia populace outside of Iran, and a majority Hindu populace and caste system. Two guesses where muslims shake out. There is friction.
5. Indo-Gangetic Plain. From the "Gates of Islam" at the mouth of the Indus river in Pakistan (formerly India) to the mouth of the Ganges river in Bangladesh (formerly Pakistan, formerly India) is one broad, flat plain that spans the sub-continent and is home to over 450 M Muslims with a continental divide so low as to be imperceptable to the human eye. Talk about an "arc of instability."

We are really babes in the woods when it comes to understanding and effective engaging in this region. If the Isrealies have a spcecial bond/relationship that is good...but it brings it's own special challenges as well. A perception of US sponsored, Jewish CT activity is likely to have negative consequences that far exceed any immediate effect.