THERE'S no confusion about the short-term goal of Bush administration officials shuttling this week and next across South Asia: averting the world's first nuclear war. But, presuming tensions over Kashmir between India and Pakistan cool down, America cannot afford to turn its attention away from facilitating a long-term political solution to one of the world's most dangerous standoffs.

For now, the good news is the administration - including President Bush in phone calls to both sides - is engaged, after having been slow to react to this high point in the more than 50-year-old Kashmiri conflict. Given the insecure nature of the Pakistani and Indian regimes, the tricky part of negotiating de-escalation is that it must now involve some means by which both leaders can save face at home.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is being pressed to close the Islamic terrorist camps on his side of Kashmir's Line of Control, but that risks further wrath from Muslim fundamentalists, whom he already has jettisoned by aiding the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Likewise, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is being pressed to return to talks with Pakistan, but he has to appease Hindu nationalists in and out of his party.

If the two sides embark on de-escalation, some sort of border patrol could evolve to keep a temporary lid on potential combat - either a U.S.-led force (though India has always rejected an international presence there) or an Indian-Pakistani force (just proposed by India and rejected by Pakistan).

The stakes are high, of course. Estimates of the immediate death toll of a South Asian nuclear exchange run as high as 12 million deaths - with millions more to follow. Given the two nations' poverty, hunger would be widespread, straining international aid and the world economy.

With weaker forces, Pakistan likely would fare badly in any nuclear or major conventional conflict with India - a beating that might weaken a necessary U.S. ally in fighting the remnants of al-Qaida and so radicalize Pakistan that it would end up led by Islamic militants. As several analysts have noted, if Osama bin Laden in Kabul was a problem, he would be truly scary in Islamabad.

In that sense, this crisis crystallizes questions dogging both Pakistan and India, questions far deeper than saving face.

For Pakistan, when will it drop the guise of a warrior nation and aspire to develop a truly modern economy? If its leaders continue to dance with Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism - even on the side - that cannot happen.

For India, how can it take a greater role on the world stage without actively seeking a political resolution in Kashmir? Otherwise, even if cooler heads prevail for the time being, India still will be held hostage - much like Israel in the Middle East - to the ever dangerous possibility of a single suicide bomber setting off a Kashmiri conflagration.