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COPYRIGHT 2001 JAI Press, Inc.
Before he left on his trip to South Asia in March 2000, President Clinton referred to that region as "the most dangerous place" on earth. His comment was inspired by the perception shared by many in Washington that rising tensions over Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the world's latest nuclear powers, had created a volatile mix of fear and uncertainty that could have cataclysmic consequences. [1]
Indo-Pakistani tensions were heightened in 1999 when regular and irregular forces from Pakistan crossed the Line of Control (LOC) and infiltrated Indian-controlled Kashmir. [2] They succeeded in temporarily capturing some positions that the Indian army routinely abandons during the winter due to their great altitude. That incursion in the Kargil region threatened a strategic road connecting Leh, the capital of Ladakh in northeastern Kashmir, to Srinagar, the state's summer capital, and predictably led to a forceful Indian response when it was discovered in May. In July 1999 Indian military prowess and political determination on the one hand, and American diplomatic pressure on Pakistan on the other, forced the Pakistani-backed intruders to withdraw from the Indian side of the LOC. [3] The withdrawal defused the crisis, but left Pakistan's humiliated military leaders extremely bitter, and indeed contributed in no small measure to the military coup of October 1999 and the overthrow and incarceration of Nawaz Sh arif, the civilian prime minister who had agreed to pull the Pakistani forces out of Indian Kashmir. He was replaced as head of government by one of the principal architects of the Kargil misadventure, General Pervez Musharraf, the army chief of staff. The Kargil episode also left the Indian political elite and military brass suspicious of Pakistani intentions, since the incursion was planned and executed to coincide with the Indian prime minister's goodwill mission to Pakistan in February 1999. The Indian press portrayed the operation as a brazen betrayal of the incipient peace process.
Indian anger at Pakistan's perceived duplicity increased when Pakistan-based militants hijacked an Indian Airlines plane on a flight from Kathmandu, Nepal, to Delhi in late December 1999. They demanded, and won, the release of three terrorists (two Pakistanis and one Kashmiri) from Indian prisons. While the Pakistani government denied any involvement, its connivance became clear when at least two of the freed terrorists turned up in Pakistan. One of them, Masood Azhar, enjoyed a hero's welcome in major cities there, and then publicly announced the creation of yet another terrorist organization in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to fight India in the Kashmir Valley. The free rein given by the Pakistan government to militant Islamic outfits augmented the perception of official Pakistani complicity in terrorism.
Any remaining doubts as to Islamabad's stance toward terrorism against India dissolved in the summer of 2000, when overt Pakistani pressure led one militant group, the Hizbul-Mujahideen, to end its recently declared cease-fire against Indian troops. Other militant groups carried out horrible massacres during the two-week period in which the Hizb's cease-fire had been operative in order to undermine it. The Hizb, under Pakistani pressure, was then forced to put forward conditions that were impossible for India to accept. [4] After the cease-fire was rescinded, further acts of savage terrorism in Srinagar buttressed the impression in India that Pakistan was not interested in curbing the activities of the terrorist organizations operating from its soil. It also put paid to all speculation about the resumption of bilateral talks between India and Pakistan. Indian leaders have insisted since the Kargil crisis that talks cannot begin until Pakistan stops, or at the very least drastically curtails, the cross-border infiltration of terrorists.
Clinton's Visit and American Policy
During his visit to India and Pakistan in the spring of 2000, President Clinton, while abjuring any intention of mediating between the two neighbors, exhorted them to resolve their conflict over Kashmir as a prelude to normalcy in South Asia. Official and unofficial rhetoric emanating from Washington before and during his visit constantly reiterated the advice to New Delhi that India could not play its rightful regional and global role until it had settled the Kashmir problem. The president's visit made it clear that Washington had decided to invest heavily in India both in economic and political terms. It also signaled that the United States had downgraded Pakistan's importance within its strategic framework. However, American policymakers still seem wedded to the idea that the two countries would be able to reach an amicable settlement of the Kashmir problem if only they, and particularly India, exerted themselves toward this end. This may well turn out to be a dangerous illusion that could inadvertently e xacerbate the conflict in the Indian subcontinent by putting the status quo power (India) on a par with the power most opposed to the status quo (Pakistan), thereby encouraging the latter's destabilizing actions. Pakistan launched its Kargil campaign in the hope that alarm bells in Washington would lead to some form of American or other international involvement, for it is only through such intervention that Pakistan perceives a chance to extract from India the territorial concessions it seeks. In this sense, the American...
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