On this day a year back a momentous event occurred which would have no effect on the course of history. 19 terrorists hijacked 4 planes and rammed them into three American buildings. These terrorists were members of an organization which was established by insurgents financed and armed by Americans.
There were some lessons in this for Americans. Unfortunately they haven’t learnt any of these:

1. You cannot finance and arm a gang of thugs to fight another such gang.
2. You can either pursue your own interests or be the world’s policeman. You can’t be both. Your government claims to you that it is pursuing self-interest abroad. To everyone else it is claiming to fight for international peace and democracy. This might seem like good tactic, but it isn’t. Your citizens won’t let you fight the global war. Everyone else will see through your game. Worst of all, your own government will get confused whenever it needs to act.
3. Even if you sincerely try to be the world’s policeman everyone else will accuse you of not doing enough if you try to ignore them. They will hate you and accuse you of ‘imperialism’ when you do too much and they don’t like what you have done. The worst case scenario of course, is that they will ram your planes against your buildings.
4. You can’t prop up puppet dictatorships in other countries and then express complet? surprise that citizens of those countries hate you for your democracy and freedom and condemn both as a sham.
5. You can’t prop up puppet dictatorships anyway. Running an empire requires a government’s undivided attention. You are a democracy. Every two years you have elections, where the issues could be range from Enron’s skullduggery to your President’s definition of sex. While you are thus distracted, your friendly dictatorships get toppled and replaced by rulers who hate you.
6. Which also means that if you have to get involved, you better make sure that you can get out fast. Also, don’t get involved unless you have a good reason and your people are solidly behind you. And don’t pretend to the rest of the world that you are going in for anything other than a selfish cause.
7. Friendship with a democracy is messy, but longer lasting. You may disagree often with your democratic ‘friends’ and it might seem more efficient to prop up a dictatorship, but please revise lessons 4 and 5.

India has repeatedly flunked International Relations 101 so history gave it only three elementary lessons which she too hasn’t learnt.

1. The American government is elected by the Americans to look after American interests. The Indian government is elected by Indians to look after Indian interests. Really. Look up the respective constitutions.
2. ‘War of words’ is only a figure of speech. International fora may look like debating clubs, but the job of the government is not to win debating points. Revise lesson 1 to find out what it actually is.
3. India’s job is not to establish world peace. Not nuclear disarmament. Not to acquire third world leadership. Revise lesson 1 once again.