Return of Good vs Bad Terrorists

In his second term, Donald Trump seems to have embraced the narrative of classifying 'good' and 'bad' terrorists. India can't ignore the trouble such an approach spells

- KP NAYAR

AMID an exaggerated obsession with a return to hyphenation between New Delhi and Islamabad by the international community, India is dangerously unconcerned about the resurgence of an existential threat to its national security.

The so-called 12-day war between Israel and Iran-as indeed other global events following the return of Donald Trump to the White House-has revived the idea of 'good terrorists vs bad terrorists' in international strategies and diplomacy. It is a menacing idea that the US promoted in South Asia and the Arab world for more than three decades until Trump first became US president in 2017.

India paid a big price for it as the country that suffered most from terrorism in those decades. Now the spectre is back.

But New Delhi's response so far has been to ignore it, hoping it will go away by pretending that the threat does not exist.

The Trump administration knows very well that Pakistan is a state sponsor of terrorism. But in choosing to ignore it and inviting the patron saint of such terrorism today, Field Marshal Asim Munir, to the White House, the US is glorifying him as a good terrorist.

Similarly, Trump has lifted sanctions against Syria although the country's new regime is headed by a man who is a terrorist now in a pacifist avatar. The new Syrian regime has been engaged in genocide of Christians and the Alawaite minority.

They have kidnapped scores of women from Damascus. But, for the US and the European Union, President Ahmed al Sharaa is now a good terrorist.