GENERAL Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, is facing mounting international pressure to fulfill his promises to stop militants from crossing into Indian-controlled Kashmir. America is adding its weight to peace-making efforts.
Viewed from Washington, Musharraf has had a good war against terrorism. His swift jettisoning of Pakistan's alliance with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and his lending of logistical support for the American war effort earned him gratitude and a respect not usually accorded military dictators. But now America seems worried that Pakistan's failure to rein in militants responsible for terrorist attacks in Indian-controlled areas in Kashmir risks sparking a regional conflagration. It is also already jeopardizing the success of the war against the Taliban and the al-Qaida terrorist network.
President Bush has said that Musharraf "must stop incursions across the line of control" that separates the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir. He is sending his secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, to visit the leaders of both India and Pakistan. ... Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is on his way in to refine a peace proposal, if one exists.
Most signals, it is true, have pointed to anything but peace in the past few days. On Monday, Musharraf promised for the second time since January that Pakistan would not export terrorism to India, but in a manner so belligerent that he seemed to be daring India rather than placating it. To prove the point, Pakistan test-fired three missiles. India called the speech "disappointing and dangerous." It ridiculed Pakistan's claim that it is not exporting terror. "Mere verbal denials are untenable," said India's foreign minister, Jaswant Singh, "because they run against facts on the ground."
Pakistanis insist that Musharraf is doing as India demands. It will soon be apparent, they say, that the government has blocked infiltration by anti-Indian militants across the line of control. Their activities range from targeted attacks on security forces to dreadful acts of civilian slaughter. A Pakistani newspaper reports that radio links between militants on either side of the line have been cut. General Musharraf is also said to be dismantling camps for terrorists in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. In return, he expects India's prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, to open talks on Kashmir. India, though angry and disbelieving, accepts this deal in principle. If Musharraf keeps his promises, said Singh, India will "reciprocate."
This is what outsiders such as Straw and Armitage are pushing for. Apart from their nuclear worries, they are desperate to head off an attack by India on the main frontline ally in the fight against al-Qaida. As conscientious fighters of terror, they are pushing Musharraf to act first by cracking down on terrorism. Bush called on him to "perform." If he does, Vajpayee will be expected to follow. ...
A gap remains between what India demands and what Musharraf says he will do. India wants the machinery of terrorism shut down for good, not merely put in storage. General Musharraf is unlikely to comply in full. One reason is that if war does break out, the machinery will come in handy.
Musharraf told The Washington Post that "hundreds of thousands" of people are itching to fight India on its side of Kashmir. A second is that India's mistrust of Pakistan is fully reciprocated. India wants to crush Kashmir's resistance and to destabilize Pakistan, Musharraf told the Post. He also believes that India wants to remove him personally, and it is true that in New Delhi his standing approaches zero. India's demand for the liquidation of the outfits that fight India would, in Pakistan's view, amount to unilateral disarmament. India, meanwhile, would go ahead with elections in Kashmir set for this autumn and call the results an endorsement of its rule, leaving Pakistan in the cold and Musharraf looking like the dictator who lost Kashmir.
The general can ill-afford this. True, his regime does not look especially shaky. According to a recent poll commissioned by the U.S. State Department, 72 percent of urban Pakistanis have confidence in him. ... A large majority backs his banning of the extremist Islamist groups that have caused havoc inside Pakistan. ... The polls also show that although support for the militants in Kashmir is strong, it shows signs of slipping.
But it is not the silent majority that threatens the general's rule. Rather, it is a lethal minority. The most dangerous are the extremists, who regard him as an American stooge for joining the war against the Taliban and will brand him an Indian lackey if he chokes off the militancy in Kashmir. Terrorism within Pakistan is probably their doing.
Even more alarming is the growing evidence that members of al-Qaida, displaced from Afghanistan into Pakistan, have been involved in these attacks. The al-Qaida remnants are thought to be not only in hiding in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas, but in many of Pakistan's largest cities.
Pakistan's army is disciplined. But even the army harbors people with similar attitudes to some of the militants. On Kashmir, Musharraf shares some himself. No Pakistani can contemplate surrendering to India: All worry that India, which dismembered Pakistan in 1971, would love to do it again. Yet India cannot accept Pakistan holding in reserve a terrorist weapon that may again be used to press its case in Kashmir.
What is needed now is a sequence of steps to dance Pakistan and India away from the brink without allowing one to trip the other up. Outsiders such as Straw and the American officials can help with the choreography.