I have read this argument in another of your posts. The appeal to repeat an American civil war or Tibetan experience is lucrative but please remember this is not USA or Tibet. Kashmir's fate is entangled with Pakistan unlike Tibet which was neither a disputed territory nor any third party interest was involved. The absence of a formidable enemy with entangled interest was the secret of Chinese success in Tibet, Russians in Central Asia. We have tried similar 'iron fist' treatment for decades now. Did it pay off? If not then lets start scratching heads again and try to sort out the blunders we have made again and again. We got plenty of opportunities before. Every war success was lost on truce papers. Every strategic advantage won by military was just thrown away by political leaders, be it LBS or IG. We got similar opportunity in '99, just didn't have enough guts to implement it undoing the errors in the past.
Pakistan has learnt its mistakes and they are not going to give another chance by resorting to military solution of Kashmir again. India still have clung to its old, unaltered policy of the 90's, i.e rigged election, bribing and security excesses. It has simply done nothing to win the sympathies of the valley which is brilliantly exploited by Pakistan. The only way to answer the proxy war is a hard-soft stance and more emphasis on good governance. Otherwise we will just sleepwalk into another strategic blunder.
