As evidence emerges that the gunmen who caused the carnage in Mumbai were operatives of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, one question reverberates: Was the Pakistani government responsible for the Mumbai terror attacks?

This is the wrong question to ask. During the late 1980s and the 1990s, the Pakistani government created terror organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba as tools of asymmetric warfare against Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. In recent years, however, the jihadis, like the magic brooms in Goethe's tale, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," have taken on a life of their own; along with the government, the army and the intelligence services, such groups now comprise one of the main centers of gravity within Pakistan.

Several factors have enabled them to reach this point. The jihadis have been armed and trained by elements of the Pakistani military and security services, and are funded by a sophisticated international financial network. In addition, they enjoy street popularity, and remain a useful means of combatting India's presence in Kashmir. Consequently, the Pakistani government has balked at opportunities to shut them down.

As a result, the militants are now in a position to conduct their own policy. Like the Goethe's magic brooms, they often act against the interests of their creators, attacking security personnel, assassinating government officials and seizing territory within Pakistan, as well as launching attacks on India that could trigger a regional war. The question, then, is not whether the Pakistani government was responsible for the Mumbai attacks, but who will now play the role of sorcerer and rein in the jihadis.

In theory, either the Pakistani or the Indian government could do so. But Mumbai has shown that neither side is up to the task. The Pakistani government cannot prevent militants from using its soil to strike India. The Indians are completely unable to anticipate or repel such attacks. In addition, they lack the military capabilities needed to clear militant strongholds within Pakistani territory.

The situation requires a radical re-thinking of South Asia's security. Both sides must adopt policies that transcend their traditional comfort zones. The Pakistani government must forswear militancy, end support for the jihadis and accept international military and financial assistance in crushing them. The Pakistani government needs to recognize that the costs of supporting militancy outweigh its benefits, and that Mumbai may be the last chance to get control of the situation. If the government does not act against the militants now, then it may lose control of the state, or find itself drawn into a catastrophic conflict with India in the wake of another terrorist attack.

The Indians, for their part, must start to take their own security more seriously. In 1991, after suffering a major financial crisis, the Indian government came to terms with the failures of its socialist development model and adopted a free-market approach to economic growth. Similarly, India must use this crisis to wholly revamp its security infrastructure. If it fails to do so, the country's impressive economic expansion of recent years will be for naught. Simply put, international corporations will view the country as being too dangerous and refuse to do business there.

The road to real improvement in India will be long and complex, but the Indians can start by properly training and equipping their police and domestic security personnel, who were outgunned and outwitted for nearly three days in Mumbai by just a handful of terrorists. Simultaneously, New Delhi must address the legitimate concerns of its own Muslim community, including the long-aggrieved Kashmiri population, so that overseas terrorists do not find willing collaborators within India.

Finally, there is another player in this subcontinental drama: the United States. The United States, which has forged a strategic partnership with India, can quietly and privately nudge New Delhi to address the internal tensions in Kashmir. More important, however, the United States must use its leverage as Pakistan's largest source of bilateral assistance to press the Pakistanis to end their support for the jihadis. It cannot continue to provide Islamabad with billions of dollars to fight the war on terror while Pakistan-based militant groups conduct operations like the Mumbai attacks. If Pakistan is to continue to benefit from American largesse, it must demonstrate a tangible commitment to ending support for such organizations.

None of these steps will provide an overnight solution to the problems laid bare by the Mumbai attacks. But, in time, they can help South Asia to create its own modern-day sorcerer, and deal with the militant forces that Pakistan has unleashed over decades. If the region fails to do so, its story, unlike Goethe's, will not have a happy ending.

Sumit Ganguly is the director of research of the Center on American and Global Security at Indiana University, Bloomington, and an adjunct senior fellow of the Pacific Council on International Policy. S. Paul Kapur is associate professor at U.S. Naval Postgraduate School; the views he expresses in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. government.

The small band of terrorists who attacked Mumbai last week killed nearly 200 people, wounded several hundred more and stoked tensions between India and Pakistan. The attacks have brought attention to the countries' long-simmering dispute over Kashmir and the diplomatic balancing act the United States must play between the nuclear-armed neighbors. They also expose major flaws in India's national security and highlight Pakistan's ineffectiveness in dealing with terrorist groups.

Paul Kapur, a faculty affiliate at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation and an associate professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, is an expert on international security in South Asia. He's the author of Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia, and his work has appeared in journals such as International Security, Security Studies, Asian Survey, and Asian Security.

In an interview with Stanford Report, Kapur discussed the group that was likely behind the attacks and how he expects the situation to unfold.

American and Indian officials say there's evidence linking the attacks to members of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Who are these people, and what would be their motivation for hitting Mumbai?

Lashkar-e-Taiba is one of a number of militant groups that have been fighting against Indian control of Kashmir. India doesn't control all of Kashmir but controls part of it, including the Kashmir valley, which is especially prized.

These types of groups have been active since the late 1980s. There was a spontaneous--and mostly indigenous--uprising against Indian rule in Kashmir as the result of Indian ineptitude and malfeasance. The Pakistanis took advantage of the situation and got involved with the insurgency and started backing militant organizations with arms and training and financial and logistical support. It was an opportunity on the Pakistani side. By supporting the insurgency, they could potentially get the territory from India and bleed Indian resources.

What does that say about Pakistan's responsibility for the attacks?

There does seem to be strong evidence that Lashkar-e-Taiba was involved, and the attackers did come from Pakistan. But that doesn't mean the Pakistani government was directly involved with this operation. My guess is they probably weren't.

Events like this show that the Pakistani government is either unable or unwilling to quash militancy within its territory and to stop terrorists from using Pakistani soil to launch attacks on its neighbors.

Even if the Pakistani government now is not directly pulling the strings of these groups, the groups exist largely because of Pakistani support in the past. So now the genie is out of the bottle. The big danger is that a group like this could trigger an Indo-Pakistani crisis and conflict without the direct involvement of the Pakistani government.

But that doesn't mean the Pakistani government was directly involved with this operation. My guess is they probably weren't.

What does this mean for relations between India and Pakistan? Do you expect India will launch a military response?

It's certainly possible. If you think about the last time there was a major Indo-Pakistani militarized crisis, it was after a failed attack on the Indian parliament-also involving Lashkar-e-Taiba-back in 2001. That attack failed. About five people died, and it was over in the space of a morning. Nonetheless, the Indians were so outraged that they mobilized about 500,000 troops along the international border, and there was a major standoff that lasted almost a year.

That was-in my view-a lot less provocative than Mumbai. This attack killed almost 200 people, wounded hundreds more, lasted almost three days and targeted the financial hub of India. There's going to be a lot of pressure domestically for the government to act in a forceful way.

The unfortunate thing is that things were getting better between the two sides. Since that last crisis in 2001-2002, a peace process had begun and there was really a thaw in Indo-Pakistani relations. Kashmir had actually gotten more stable, and the general sense was that the regional trajectory was a positive one. Ironically, it may be that some of that progress is what motivated the Mumbai attacks. Part of the goal of an operation like this would certainly be to derail improving relations in the region.

Both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. How will that factor into how the countries deal with each other?

Nuclear weapons will create incentives for the two countries-even in the event of a crisis-to behave somewhat cautiously so the situation doesn't spin out of control. But the problem is that nuclear weapons also greatly reduce the margin for error. In the event of a miscalculation, the cost could be catastrophic.

America is an ally of both these countries and has relied on the Pakistanis to combat the Taliban along the border with Afghanistan. What's at stake for American diplomacy in this situation?

It's very tricky. The U.S. relies on Pakistan as a major ally in the war on terror. We've been pressuring the Pakistanis to pay attention to the northwest frontier and the border with Afghanistan and get that area under control. One thing the United States does not want to see is an Indo-Pakistani conflict, which draws Pakistani forces away from that mission in the northwest and back to the east to combat the Indians. From the standpoint of U.S. goals in Afghanistan, it would take resources away from that struggle, and so the United States very much wants the current situation to be resolved in a way that doesn't involve a major confrontation.

The problem is that it's going to be hard for the U.S. to say to the Indians, "Hey, you shouldn't retaliate against these guys," because this is exactly the argument that the United States makes in justifying its own retaliation against terrorists. If a country is unable or unwilling to keep its territory from being used to launch terror attacks, then U.S. leaders have claimed to have the right to go in and deal with the situation.

There are reports that India received warnings about the possibility of terrorist attacks on Mumbai. What did government officials do with that information, and why wasn't more done to beef up security and counterterrorism measures?

It's not clear that they did anything. They may have ratcheted up security for a short time and then let it return to normal levels. One of the things that's going to come out of this in the weeks and months ahead is an examination of the effectiveness of the Indian security services. Obviously, there's a huge intelligence failure here. But at a tactical level, it took almost three days to get a handful of terrorists out of three or four buildings. It wasn't a shining moment. The Indian security forces bravely did their job. But in terms of their effectiveness, my sense is that there were some pretty serious shortcomings.

President-elect Barack Obama will inherit an Iraq that has experienced substantial improvements in security, but remains rife with unresolved internal issues. If not handled carefully, Iraq's fragile progress could dissolve and the country could become a dangerous foreign policy minefield for yet another American president. Here are the top 10 issues the next administration must address:

1. Determination of Objectives: The Bush administration invested vast resources in the hopes of achieving maximalist aims in Iraq. Though the results in Iraq have clearly fallen short of those aims, the Obama administration needs to formulate a policy that is more comprehensive and nuanced than "end this war." What can the U.S. realistically achieve? What are the outcomes that the U.S. can or cannot live with? How does Iraq fit in to a cogent strategy for the broader region, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran?
2. Approach to Withdrawal: The Status of Forces Agreement moving forward between the U.S. and Iraqi governments, combined with the urgent need for reinforcements in Afghanistan, will shape the contours of withdrawal. But what if Baghdad wants to change the schedule? Will changing conditions on the ground affect the pace and process of withdrawal? Is Washington willing to extend or accelerate the current "time horizon" if the security situation significantly deteriorates?
3. Management of the Security Transition: Earlier attempts to transfer security responsibility to Iraqi forces in 2006 encountered many problems. Do current assessments of when provinces will be ready for transition accurately reflect conditions on the ground? Can the U.S. effectively "thin out" its forces, while maintaining robust enabling capabilities (intelligence, air support, medical evacuation) in critical areas?
4. Development of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF): America must help the Iraqi forces foster competence and professionalism and prevent the reemergence of sectarianism in the ranks. To make this happen, U.S. military advisors will likely be needed for years to come, particularly to help develop support capabilities that the Iraqis currently lack. Is this advisory effort effective as currently organized and prepared? How will advisors be allocated to meet growing demands in Afghanistan as well as Iraq? Can the Defense Department accelerate its Foreign Military Sales program to provide the ISF with badly-needed equipment?
5. Sunni Reintegration: The Sunni Awakening and Sons of Iraq groups are facing an uncertain future as they transition from American control to Iraqi payroll and command structures. How can the U.S. help ensure that Sunnis are reintegrated into Iraqi society so they have a stake in the political system and do not return to the insurgency?
6. Status of Kirkuk: Kirkuk, the oil-rich city of northern Iraq claimed by both Kurds and Arabs, will be a flashpoint for continued conflict. What role can the U.S. play to minimize the potential for re-escalation of Arab-Kurd violence over Kirkuk? Should U.S. policy emphasize indefinite postponement of this issue, broker a territorial compromise, or encourage Iraqis to "give" the city to one side and focus instead on sharing oil revenues?
7. Dealing with Iranian influence: As Iraq's neighbor, Iran has a natural interest in influencing Iraq's domestic affairs. However, Tehran's political obstructionism and support for militants ultimately undermines Iraqi as well as American interests. How much and what types of Iranian influence in Iraqi affairs can the U.S. tolerate? How can the U.S. help Iraqis counter the most destabilizing and pernicious Iranian influences?
8. Future of Political Relations with Iraq: How does the U.S. envision its relations with an emerging sovereign Iraq that is likely to exhibit erratic behavior on the international stage? How and to what extent should America insert itself in Iraqi politics? Should the U.S. government actively seek a balance of power between Iraq's major factions, so as to spread the risk and avoid linking itself to the fortunes of any one group? Or should it remain on the sidelines, so as to extricate ourselves as best we can?
9. Economic Development: Iraq's economy is currently 90 percent dependent on oil exports, resulting in substantial volatility in revenue. How can the U.S. help Iraq diversify its economic base? How can the U.S. encourage greater foreign investment in the Iraqi economy beyond the energy sector? What incentives could Baghdad provide provincial and local officials to improve transparency and revenue sharing mechanisms?
10. Return of Refugees: Huge numbers of Iraqis fled to Jordan and Syria to escape sectarian violence. Does Baghdad owe those nations financial aid? As refugees return, what is the best way to handle this influx? Is America committed to reestablishing the mixed-sect districts that existed prior to 2006? Is a level of sectarian separation necessary to keep the peace?

No panacea exists for Iraq's remaining ills, and no amount of planning will account for all of its complex and sometimes contradictory dynamics. But with America's direct influence likely to wane as its troop presence diminishes, it is increasingly important to anticipate the full spectrum of difficult issues and choices ahead, in order to devise the best way forward for the United States and Iraq.

Brian M. Burton is a research assistant at the Center for a New American Security and a graduate student at the Georgetown University Security Studies Program. John Paul Schnapper-Casteras is a predoctoral fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation.