PRESIDENT Barack Obama has proved no different from his predecessor George W. Bush. Starting from Afghanistan to lots of other issues, the situation has not really improved. Rather, things have gone from bad to worse. It is not the Obama one finds in his memoirs and certainly not the man who seemed like a beacon of hope during his election campaign. The way Obama has ignored the Kashmir issue shows how hollow his rhetoric was. The pro-Indian lobby in his administration has deftly been able to sabotage the agenda chalked out during the campaign, but again the fault lies with the US supreme commander who ought to have stood his ground against these challenges. To all intents and purposes, this particular class is pulling the strings, making him not even revert to what he once had in mind regarding the Kashmir conflict. The sad thing is that while hundreds of Kashmiris in Washington were protesting the US indifference towards them and pointing out the human rights abuses by the Indian security forces, President Obama was having a tte--tte with the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the White House. It is quite clear that the US would not do anything that could irritate the Indians, even if it means letting them carry on with their atrocious occupation of the Valley. What is more, the US position on Kashmir is quite deceiving. Could it hope to bring normalcy to the region while sidestepping the Kashmir imbroglio? Things would never change unless New Delhi is told not to suppress the peoples right to self-determination anymore. Truth is that ensuring safety of the subcontinent's security system requires much more than patronising the Indians, a policy aimed at containing hostile states like China. If India is a nuclear state then so is Pakistan, whose geopolitical position is far more important. Throwing the entire region, especially Kashmir, into chaos just for the sake of achieving its strategic interests that centre around supporting a hegemon state, would serve no useful purpose. The protestors in the Lafayette Park sounded a warning that the conflict could provoke a nuclear war between the two neighbouring countries if it stayed unresolved. Their proposal that a settlement in line with the resolutions of the UN allowing the people the right to decide their fate through a plebiscite is the best way out. It is time New Delhi was told plainly that it would have to listen the voices calling for freedom from the Indian yoke.