THE USA, in the course of the inaugural round of the strategic dialogue with Pakistan, refused to mediate between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir issue. This is in contradiction of President Obamas campaign rhetoric, and represents his surrender to the received opinion in Washington, which believes that Indias illegal occupation of the Held Valley must be protected because India wants it so, and it must be propped up as a regional counterweight to China. Also, Indias propaganda about being the largest democracy in the world goes down well with a Democrat Administration, gullible because it wants to be fooled by what American corporations tell it is a vast market. Under the circumstances, there seems little point in the Pakistani team continuing with the strategic dialogue. After all, there does not seem to be much point to a dialogue where one interlocutor does not take account of the others main concern, purely because it does not wish to upset the party about which the concerns exist. However, perhaps the USA is not entirely to blame. The Pakistani teams subservience merely reflects that of the government to the USA, and in fact, that also reflects why there is not any real point to the strategic dialogue, because a dialogue would imply that one side does not defer unduly to the other side because it is somehow subservient to it. It further makes clear why the Pakistani team did not argue the Kashmir issue more forcefully. There was a desire not to offend the USA. The American refusal over Kashmir makes the measures that were duly announced in the joint statement issued after the dialogue, doubtful. The greater market access, a long-standing Pakistani demand, and the beginning of the Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZs), a longstanding US promise, are rendered doubtful. This is despite the setting up of a Policy Steering Group tasked to oversee the expansion of the dialogue. However, if instead of expanding the dialogue, the USA was to focus harder on helping Pakistan solve the Kashmir issue, it would be worth more than any amount of dialogue, and would also push India in a direction it has been trying to avoid - ending its illegal occupation of Kashmir, and also coming into compliance with the UN Security Council resolutions on the subject, which provide for a UN-administered plebiscite to determine the will of the people of Kashmir. The War on Terror is a US War, and any dialogue which focuses on it, will primarily benefit the USA, not the other participant in the dialogue.