It is as evident that president Obama has decided to abandon shoring up democracy, modernity and moderate Islam in Afghanistan by striking a deal with the deadly anti-Indian Haqqani group within the Afghan Taliban. For his aim, the US president wants India to persuade Afghan president Hamid Karzai to agree to the deal that was about to be worked out in negotiations with the Taliban directly between the US and the dangerous extremists even as they rain destruction all over that tragic country in a bid to return to power. If the people and government here have missed the US game plan, the American visitor in New Delhi last Monday reminded them indirectly of it by refusing to answer a question on whether the US-Taliban talks proposed to be held in Qatar would include the Haqqani group. Not surprisingly, US secretary of state John Kerry during his visit was proposing that India sign on his dotted line. His Indian counterpart, Salman Khurshid, true to the type of a boneless government to which he belongs, did not seem to have an alternative plan to confront the US betrayal in Afghanistan. In forcing out the extremist Taliban regime in Kabul in 2001, the original goal of America was to transform Afghanistan into a democracy on a more enduring basis. That enduring basis could at least for the present be only through president Karzai and his constitutional democracy being sustained for long with international support. It would be idle to ignore the fact that for India, Kabul is a strategic and nearby destination for saving its own democracy from growing Islamic fundamentalism that has spawned the multiple terror groups that operate from both Afghanistan and Pakistan deep into India and globally. Kerry might have sung praises of the UPA government and extended invitation to prime minister Manmohan Singh to visit Washington coming September. However, the absence of specific geography or politics in Kerry’s post-visit statements should be noted. The two countries, Kerry said, “share a very specific and similar vision for peace, democracy and stability in Asia and in the Indian and pacific Ocean”. He did not specify the pivotal country to this “democracy and peace”, namely, Afghanistan, where brutal Islamist groups are waiting in the wings with the sworn aim of implementing their medieval agenda. If the Taliban returns to Kabul as part of a regime, the stage will again be set for exporting its brand of Islamist extremism to neighbouring nations. That India will be the very first target because anti-Indian Islamists are spread across Pakistan and the two extremist groups are working closely in the frontier province of Pakistan is almost written on the walls of Peshawar. The Islamists in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India who are already working in tandem to rip asunder this country would have yet another safe base to implement their agenda. Militancy in Kashmir began with the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, enabling the Islamists organised and funded by America against the Soviet Union, looking for a new and fertile target to find it in Kashmir Valley. One may recall that every major invasion of this country before the British colonial era began with invaders streaming across from Khyber Pass. The Obama administration seemingly is satisfied that it will persuade the Taliban to give “assurances” on protecting Afghan democracy but the Taliban itself has asserted that it would give no such assurances. What value the “assurances” have once the camel of the Arab fable enters the tent. After all, the Taliban was only part of nationalistic forces in Afghanistan that worked collectively to oust Russian invaders but swiftly moved to usurp power in Kabul and drive the “Northern Alliance” forces out of the capital. They can be expected to repeat the performance once they are allowed to share power in Kabul. America is determined to abandon democracy and modernity in Afghanistan and focussing on playing the Asian chessboard against China opposite. India will have to devise its own counter strategy to keep any Taliban element out of the corridors of power in Kabul. The Indian counter to the US game in the so-called “peace talks” with the Taliban should be total refusal to give the Taliban respectability and legitimacy in any settlement. Their words are meant to hoodwink people into letting them get to power. The fundamental belief of this terrorist group is to bring back the caliphate type of government in which the most backward parts of the Sharia law will be implemented, Islam will be considered “Umma” without national borders and right to impose its religion over others will have to be accepted by the international community. Let us make no mistake about this aim. Osama bin Laden had asserted this in his many interviews to American reporters. After his elimination even more deadly extremists like al-Zawahiri and Mullah Omar are leading the Al Qaeda. And Mullah Omar is an Afghan himself. In 1999, the Taliban government in Kabul had totally identified itself with the Al Qaeda when the Indian Airlines plane was hijacked to the Afghan capital. Threats were held out to kill all the over 100 Indian passengers, and India had to secure their lives at humiliating terms. Whatever the priorities of the Obama administration in the region, we have an opportunity to advance our national interest in the renewed awakening in Europe over the Islamic terrorist threat. In the UK, Al Qaeda-linked Islamic extremists had beheaded a British security man in London. Some eight Muslims have been convicted for conspiracy to sow mayhem in Britain, The French government is feeling the Al Qaeda heat after its attempt to rescue the Mali government from Islamic takeover. And there have been repeated emergence of Islamic terror modules in Spain, Germany and Italy. All this have has alerted Europe to the need to invest heavily in eradicating Islamist threat to democracies. Europe will recognise that only India has the infrastructure and institutions to help the Karzai government create a highly effective army to counter the Taliban and its women-hating Mullahs who bomb girls’ schools. The question before South Block is whether it will have the imagination and capacity to present a credible plan to the international community despite the American attitude to end the Taliban menace forever and prevent an Islamist regime from getting replanted in Kabul.