The template was laid down through the mother of all joint statements on January 6, when Atal ‘India Shining’ Vajpayee was still prime minister. Taking the long view, Vajpayee offered sustained and productive dialogue on all issues in exchange for President Musharraf plugging terrorism emanating from territories under his control. It has not been widely disclosed that the statement was issued after the then US national security advisor Condoleezza Rice called up her then Indian counterpart Brajesh Mishra—in Islamabad—seeking to encourage India to endorse the joint statement. For politically, it is unpalatable to think of the US as being anything but the sole superpower, building completely unhyphenated, free-standing bilateral relationships with both India and Pakistan, each with separate and neatly compartmentalised visions keeping in mind that both India and Pakistan are in different planets. Logically, however, that’s not the way it works, especially with NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan with which, if nothing else, we have an academic border. Recall, for instance, that Musharraf’s first assurance to India on curbing terrorism was made not to Vajpayee but to President George Bush, through the good offices of the then deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage. Recall also that Colin Powell dubbed Pakistan a ‘Major Non-NATO Ally’ (which technically qualifies Pakistan for upgraded arms shipments from US) barely two days after the then external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha had pronounced the Indo-US relationship to be perhaps at its "best ever".