A broad red line has been crossed with the Indian Air Force strike on Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunwa (KPK) state. For years, India has warned its patience had worn thin with Pakistan-backed terrorist attacks. At 3.30 am on Tuesday morning India demonstrated that the gloves had finally come off and it was willing to take the battle to Pakistan territory even at the risk of triggering a much wider conflict. India says it struck the biggest Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) training camp and killed a reported 300 jihadis . The Pakistanis, by contrast, insist India’s bombs landed in dense forest and killed nobody. The attack was the first time the IAF has launched an attack on Pakistani territory since 1971. Even during the Kargil War, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee insisted all air force strikes should be launched from our side of the border. The attack in KPK’s Mansehra district took place not far from Abbottabad, where Osama bin Laden lived for years and where a Pakistan Army military academy is located. Crucially, India insisted the air attack was a pre-emptive “non-military” operation to prevent an imminent Jaish-e-Mohammed strike.

Where we go from here is unclear. Indian leaders like Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh held back from attacking Pakistan even under gravest provocation because they judged it too difficult to stop a one-off strike from spiralling into all-out war. But the public mood has altered sharply in wake of the Mumbai attacks. The current government felt it had to take stronger action. Pakistan claimed after the Pulwama attack that it did not have full control over the JeM and also pointed out the terrorist group had attempted to assassinate former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Today’s retaliation showed India did not think this was a satisfactory explanation. Also, the fact is we live in a very different world in 2019 from 1999 when Kargil took place and 2008 when the Laskkar-e-Tayyaba launched its attack on Mumbai. In 1999, Bill Clinton summoned Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the White House and confronted him with evidence the Pakistan Army was the aggressor. In 2008, India once again held its hand.

The EU, China and Australia are urging restraint and President Trump has come down hard on Pakistan lately, saying Washington has given Islamabad billions of dollars in aid while it gives “safe haven” to terrorists. But whether he can bring both sides together is another question. The British, too, have a lightweight leader fighting for survival. That leaves only China’s Xi Jinping, who’s closely aligned with the Pakistanis and thus would not be trusted by India as an interlocutor. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has vowed Islamabad will respond “at the time and place of its choosing”. The Indian government has told foreign envoys in Delhi it will act with restraint, but with elections imminent, our political leaders will find it difficult to hold even behind-the-scenes talks. But a lasting solution can be found only through political dialogue.

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