Washington — Increased tension on the border between India and Pakistan often leads the news these days. Why should Americans care if two rival powers halfway across the world jockey for control of disputed territory, in this case the Indian-run land of Kashmir?
The short answer is because both Pakistan and India possess nuclear weapons, and a clash between them could trigger nuclear war. But there is another reason why the Bush administration is actively working to mediate the situation about Kashmir. Some countries could view America's war on terrorism as a carte blanche for our nation to impose its agenda on a global scale, and that message may be sent to other governments that may act in ways counter to U.S. interests under the guise of fighting terrorism.
When President Bush said that any nation harboring terrorists is a terrorist state, he gave license to a number of countries to pursue terrorists outside their own borders. If the United States can hunt the evildoers in Afghanistan, so the thinking goes, what's to stop India from going to war with Pakistan, which it blames for harboring the terrorists who last month attacked the Indian Parliament? Or Israel from pressing further into PLO territory to rid the region of Hamas and Hezbollah, the terrorist groups that operate there? Or Russia from having a free hand in Chechnya, whose Muslim fighters have ties to the al-Qaida network?
This is not to pass judgment on any of these actions by sovereign states. In some instances, they may be wise; in others, shortsighted. But it is important to understand how other leaders will take advantage of the moral absolutism that President Bush has set forth to satisfy their own ends.
India and Pakistan are both American allies, and the Bush administration is trying not to offend either country in the current standoff. The Pakistani government has suddenly been cast into the role of good guy because of the risk President Musharraf took in siding with the Bush administration in the war against terrorism. But Musharraf does not have clean hands. His military intelligence service, the ISI (Inter-Service Intelligence) is known to sympathize with Osama bin Laden and could well have helped facilitate his escape from Afghanistan. Pakistan's 7,000 religious schools, known as madrasas, are little more than indoctrination centers for holy war.
Musharraf acknowledges his government has funded at least two of the Islamic militant groups that do the principal fighting in Kashmir. Since the December attack on the Indian Parliament, which killed 14 people, including five suicide attackers, India has responded with nuclear brinkmanship, massing its million-man army on the border and threatening all-out war. Under pressure from President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell, Musharraf has responded by promising to cut off funding for the radical groups along with access to military bases from which they stage their attacks. And he has pledged to reform the madrasas by bringing them under state regulation, banning arms training and requiring them to teach a more academic curriculum.
Whether Musharraf can deliver on these commitments is unknown. Pakistan has long harbored terrorists, and the ISI has had a cozy relationship with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. After Sept. 11, when Musharraf decided to cast his lot with the United States, one of his first actions was to replace the head of the ISI and to order an end to the agency's support for the Taliban. But rooting out all the rogue elements in the shadowy intelligence service is probably not possible, and Musharraf would be the first to concede he does not have full control of his intelligence service.
India has acted with restraint, given the fact that its seat of government was attacked, and the attackers quite clearly had the tacit backing if not the full support of the Pakistani government. If Musharraf cannot rein in the Kashmir terrorists, India reserves the right to respond militarily. Telling India to back off will be a hard argument to make coming from a country that bombed Afghanistan when the Taliban didn't turn over bin Laden.
Political Correspondent Eleanor Clift contributed to this column.
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