A little over half a century on, driven by the forces unleashed by the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Imperial Britain's Pakistan project is being reinvented. It is hard to imagine a more unlikely Caliph than Pakistan's President, but that is precisely what the United States of America (USA) seems determined to anoint him.

Pakistan, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told General Pervez Musharraf at their recent meeting in Islamabad, was "a model country for the Muslim world". Among other things, she praised Pakistan's President and Chief of Army Staff for his "bold vision for South Asia and initiatives to promote peace and stability in the region". Speaking in New Delhi, she emphasized the need to help Nepal "get back on a democratic path" - but evidently felt no need to suggest something of the kind might be desirable in Pakistan as well. If the United States felt any ire at Musharraf's inflammatory proclamation on his official website that the Kargil war "proved a lesson to the Indians", it was not mentioned, at least in public.

All of which makes it necessary to ask the question: just what is the USA's own vision of stability in South Asia - and how precisely does it mean to go about achieving it?

Casual readers of media reportage on Rice's recent visit to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan might be forgiven for thinking that the USA's principle interests in the region are arms sales and Iran, in that order. Much of the public discourse of Rice's visit focused on the prospect of the possible sales of F-16 aircraft to Pakistan and the Patriot II anti-ballistic missile defense system to India. The United States' concerns about the construction of a gas pipeline from Iran to India, passing through Pakistan, ranked second in terms of the space it occupied. Little was said, unless it figured behind closed doors, about continued terrorism directed at India, nuclear proliferation, the persistence of jihadi infrastructure in Pakistan, and, yes, democracy.

F-16 aircraft and missile defense issues are, of course, important, and have a vital bearing on the security environment in South Asia. Neither, however, is a cause of instability; both are, rather, a consequence of a long-running disputation between India and Pakistan. Historically, the United States has seen such sales, or their denial, as a means of addressing the security anxieties of the antagonists - principally, of Pakistan. It is quite obvious that the strategy, if it can be called one, has failed. The provision of weapons to Pakistan did not deter it from initiating wars in 1965 and 1999; nor, notably, have its nuclear weapons and missile capabilities meant an end to its fears about India's superior conventional capabilities. A few F-16s or a missile defense system will change little.

What, then, are we too make of Rice's pronouncements? Part of the problem is the Washington, DC, policy establishment's mode of understanding South Asia. Pakistan is cast within the frame of what is called 'The Muslim World', and the United States' relations with that country seen as integral to engagement with other countries where the bulk of the population happens to be of Islamic persuasion. Much policy production in the United States rests on the a priori assumption that an entity called 'The Muslim World' in fact exists, and that the cooptation of elements of this transnational entity is central to containing terrorism. Among the key corollaries of this credo is the notion that Islamist terrorism is the product of a confrontation between two immutable adversaries, 'the West' and 'the Muslims'.

In this vision, Musharraf's 'enlightened moderation' is the key not just to securing a purely tactical set of interests - in Afghanistan, for example - but to a far larger ideological project. Perhaps as a consequence, Musharraf has never been pressed to explain the content of his 'enlightened moderation': the words themselves, evidently, are adequate. In the vision of the United States' policy establishment, this enlightened moderation stands opposed to the Islamist postures of al-Qaeda, notwithstanding the considerable evidence that exists of cooperation and accommodation between the two. In essence, the United States has thrown its weight behind the fabrication of an ummah, or community of believers, from a welter of peoples different, often adversarial, histories, cultures and interests. It is a project that closely resembles that of the Islamists, even if its projected outcome is, of course, very different.

Where might India fit into this vision? Although Rice's area of scholarly expertise is the former East Bloc, she had articulated at least the outlines of a position on South Asia before her current assignment. Writing in the journal Foreign Affairs in 2000, Rice suggested that the United States ought to "pay closer attention to India's role in the regional balance". "There is a strong tendency", she pointed out, "conceptually to connect India with Pakistan and to think only of Kashmir or the nuclear competition between the two states. But India is [also] an element in China's calculation, and it should be in America's, too. India is not a great power yet, but it has the potential to emerge as one."

Put simply, Rice and the policy establishment she represents see India as a potential strategic counterweight to China. Many in India, notably former Union Defence Minister George Fernandes, have characterized its relationship with the United States in much the same terms. This position, it needs to be noted, is not new. Until the United States began a cautious détente with China in the 1970s, it underwrote Indian covert and sub-conventional military activities targeting Tibet. Among other things, the United States supplied aircraft and technological equipment to what became the Aviation Research Centre of the Research and Analysis Wing, and provided training and weapons to the ethnic-Tibetan irregular force called Establishment 22, which fought with great distinction in the 1971 war.

It is hard to miss the limitations of an India-United States relationship founded mainly on a common set of concerns about China, however. Speaking prior to her arrival in New Delhi, Rice placed emphasis on "opportunities - economic, in terms of security, in terms of energy cooperation - that we can pursue with India." The United States' alarm at the prospect of an Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline illustrates the problems that arise from the fact that India must of necessity look west and north, and not just to its east. On the face of it, the sharing of assets between the three countries would be a factor for stability, something the United States has a common interest in. Criticism of the pipeline project has mainly emanated from a section of analysts in India, where some see enriching a hostile Islamabad as an exercise in folly, and not in the United States. US reactions to the proposed pipeline deal, however, show the ways in which concerns about West Asia, in fact, shape policy towards South Asia, just as they did a half-century ago - and the problems that inevitably arise.

Almost unnoticed, Rice's visit marks a step towards what critics in both India and Pakistan have long demanded - the end of hyphenation, or the removal of the implicit linkages of policy on one country and policy towards the other. Yet, Pakistan is not just part of 'The Muslim World', whatever this might be, nor India merely a piece of a non-Muslim Asia that has China at its center. The destinies of both countries are intimately linked. The future of their relationship depends on Pakistan's ability to re-imagine itself as a secular, progressive and democratic state, not as a carriage-bearer for an Islamist ideological enterprise. Should Pakistan be encouraged to move in this direction, India would benefit - and so too would the authoritarian states to its west. The administration of President George Bush has repeatedly proclaimed its commitment to the processes of democracy and yet seems curiously bereft of the conceptual wherewithal to bring this about.