The Rising East
Bush and Powell tread
cautiously into the
India-Pakistan tangleChalk up another winning score, cautiously, for President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell for their deft handling of a confrontation between India and Pakistan that could have spiraled down into a nuclear war.
At the same time, they may have allowed the United States to be dragged into a bitter, half-century-old dispute over Kashmir, a quarrel that previous administrations have assiduously avoided as a no-win situation.
This latest eruption began on Dec. 13 when suicidal terrorists sought to break into the Lok Sabha, India's parliament, leaving five attackers and nine others dead. India immediately blamed Pakistan and sent soldiers marching, tanks rolling, and missiles deploying. Pakistan denied direct involvement and started a crackdown on Islamic extremists even as its forces went on alert.
In stepped President Bush and Secretary Powell with a flurry of phone calls to President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee of India urging them diplomatically to cool it.
Privately, they may have used stronger language to assert that both had far more to lose by going to war, including the wrath of the United States, and much to gain by nurturing their blossoming alliances with Washington.
In previous confrontations between New Delhi and Islamabad -- they have fought three wars and innumerable skirmishes --the United States stood aside and uttered platitudes about peace. That changed when both acquired the means four years ago to assemble nuclear arms. No one can predict the consequences of a nuclear exchange between them.
For President Bush, just about the last thing he needs, with the campaign against terror going well in Afghanistan west of Pakistan, is an outbreak of hostilities between Pakistan and India to the east. Pakistan is pivotal to American success in the hunt for terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, and India is vital to long-range American efforts to maintain a balance of power in Asia.
Thus the president may have had little choice but to weigh in. Once into this fray, however, he may not be able to prevent the United States from getting into the deep, emotional quarrel that has been raging between Indians and Pakistanis for more than five decades. It began with the partition of British India in 1947 and is symbolized by the clash over Kashmir, the province of mountains, glaciers and valleys jammed between India, China, and Pakistan in the Himalayas.
When the British withdrew and India and Pakistan were established, India took control of Kashmir even though most of its citizens were Muslims, as were most Pakistanis, and not Hindus who adhere to the dominant religion of India. Both claimed Kashmir. More recently, a Kashmiri independence movement has made the issue all the more intractable.
Mubashir Zaidi, a Pakistani political writer, explained to the Cox News Service that it was a matter of national identity and sovereignty: "For Pakistanis, their nation was brought into existence to be a homeland for Muslims, so in their view Kashmir ought to be entirely theirs. For Indians, Kashmir is proof they live in a secular, multiethnic state."
Specialists in South Asian affairs assert that leaving the fate of Kashmir to the Indians and Pakistanis would be hopeless. Therefore, it may be inevitable that America will be forced to mediate, risky as that might be as New Delhi and Islamabad seek to maneuver the United States into favoring their side. Otherwise, another war between Islamabad and New Delhi may ensue.
Those specialists suggest that two changes must take place before anything substantive can happen:
>> India, which has long insisted that the Kashmir question has been settled and there is nothing to talk about, must agree that the future of Kashmir is negotiable.
>> Pakistan, which has demanded that the question of Kashmir be settled before other differences can be resolved, must agree to wait while less tangled problems such as trade and transport are worked out.
Just getting each side to move that far will take diplomacy of the first order, with reports out of Washington suggesting the President Bush will soon name a high-level emissary to represent the United States.
At a regional meeting in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Friday, Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar of Pakistan and Minister of External Affairs Jaswant Singh smiled, shook hands and exchanged pleasantries.
It wasn't much but it may have been a start.
Richard Halloran is editorial director of the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at rhalloran@starbulletin.com