Stop Crossing the Lines.(Indian, Pakistan, Kashmir)(Brief Article)

The world changed America on September 11, and America has been changing the world ever since. In Kashmir, the question is what changes Washington can and should impose on a dispute that has simmered for half a century.

What might be called terrorist incursions have been part of Pakistan's Kashmir policy since its inception. The most virulent phase began after the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, when armed and trained fighters began to search for another war to win. In the 1990s these groups, sponsored by Pakistan, usurped the anti-India movement within Kashmir. In Pakistan itself, they serve as a social glue--the one cause around which all elements of society can rally.

Pakistan's traditional reply to Indian complaints about such activity has been an injunction to look in the mirror for the "roots of terrorism." Pakistani Gen. Pervez Musharraf wisely did not suggest anything similar to President George W. Bush after September 11. Instead he fell smartly in line with the Bush doctrine and abandoned support for the Taliban. Even now, the arrests of hundreds of Islamic militants--including the leaders of the two most prominent jihad groups in Kashmir, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad--have been spurred primarily by pressure from Washington. India's deployment of thousands of troops along the Pakistani border has certainly focused minds on the issue. But Musharraf's moves would have been unthinkable if the war on terror had not made Pakistan's traditional double standard for Kashmiri militants untenable.

Two questions will determine what happens next. The first is to Islamabad, and will have to be answered convincingly. Is the "era of jihad" truly over in Kashmir? In New Delhi's view, Pakistan has said ...