Engaging India is a book that many might overlook in browsing Amazon, considering it a dry read as it deals with the intensive rounds of dialogues that were held between the Clinton administration, India and Pakistan respectively after India surprised the world with the nuclear test. Being a pre-9/11 book it might seem irrelevant except to those interested in the political dynamics of the sub-continent.

Strobe Talbott’s book, however, is a must read for those interested in knowing what US strategy might be towards hindering Iran from developing a bomb (i.e. if they don’t have one already.) especially in the midst of the unique socio-political dynamics of the country .These dynamics may well be the reasons why it might not come as a big surprise that the Iranian regime might thumb their nose at incentives offered by America/ Europe and despite international condemnation go ahead with the nuclear program anyways as did Pakistan.

Pakistan desperately needed the money. Its economy was in terrible shape. The government was on the edge of default; foreign and domestic investments had all but dried up; unemployment was rising. On top of these troubles, Pakistan had been living for years under the Pressler sanctions that the US Congress had imposed in the early 1990s because of it's nuclear program.
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Clinton telephoned Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistani Prime Minister to whet his appetite for the planes [F-16s],  huge amounts of financial aid, and a prize certain to appeal to Sharif - an invitation for him to make an official visit to Washington.

Sharif was not swayed. "You can almost hear the guy wringing his hands and sweating," Clinton said after hanging up. The lure of money, praise, and gratitude from the world, with a few long-in-the-tooth warplanes thrown in for good measure, was far less powerful than the Pakistani fears of what had happened just across their border. India in their view, had just racheted up its fifty-year-old campaign to humiliate, intimidate, and perhaps even eradicate their country.

The pressures that led Pakistan to test the Bomb were not only the fear of economically richer India or the fragile tolerance of democracy by the aristocratic military but most importantly by the public opinion. Pakistani identity has always been defined by national pride and Fear of the Other, than any long-term desire for sustainable development.

And it was public opinion again that led the Indian government to resist global pressure into signing the CTBT till it died an unsightly death under the Bush Administration anyway.

Talbott through his skilful combination of anecdotal writing and humor makes a reader chuckle even through tense situations such as the reactions of Pakistani Generals when asked to back down from the Kargil War who looked as if they wanted to jump across the table and do Talbott bodily harm or the hand-wringing sweaty Nawaz Sharif, erstwhile Prime Minister who reminded him of a helpless puppy.

Pakistan was clearly shown to be a failing state bogged down by religious zealots and the military and yet the very devil that seemed to be the biggest danger to the fledging democracy became the nation’s savior in the form of General Pervez Musharraf.

Post 9/11, General Musharaf made a far sighted decision and overrode the vehement protests of the mullahs and began to curb the terrorist training madrasas and camps with an iron fist. Thus in a matter of days Pakistan  was no longer an emaciated dog living on crumbs thrown by its American master but a strategic ally of America in the war against terrorism.

Today ironically the nuclear arsenal seems safer in the hands of a despotic General (despite the flashpoint that happened back in 2002 between India and Pakistan) than a weak democratically elected politician who wouldn’t be able to handle the mullahs nor the insurgents.

The much talked about flashpoint was averted by aggressive diplomacy on the part of America and Britain but more so by the economic squeeze put by the foreign interests threatening to pull out and the resultant pressure put on the governments by strong public opinion to back down.

Post-9/11, America and India are closer than ever before, economically and strategically. Pakistan is a valuable ally in the War on Terror. Furthermore, in this unipolar world, America plays an essential balancing role in the Subcontinent, healing deep scars left behind by the Last Empire, on which the sun never set.

Thus, this book clearly shows that in countries where the <i>vox populi</i> is strong, governments take this into account in critical decisions, despotic or democratic. If the Iranian public is as vociferous, we could be faced with a second Islamic Bomb.

Strobe Talbott was the deputy Secretary of State under Wild Bill Clinton and currently president of the Brookings Institution thinktank.