Tony Blair has logged more miles on America's behalf in the Middle East and Central Asia than Colin Powell, according to the Press. Tony Blair is America's best friend.
Bush sits at his ranch, relaxes, lifts weights, celebrates the New Year, and Tony Blair goes to India to sort out the mess over there.
First the American view...
Powell Has Urgency in South Asia
By GEORGE GEDDA
Associated Press Writer
January 2, 2002, 10:26 AM EST
WASHINGTON -- The numbers tell the story of why Secretary of State Colin Powell, worried about a South Asian conflagration, has been on the phone almost daily with leaders of India and Pakistan: 1.03 billion people in India and nearly 150 million in Pakistan.
With that many people, the two nuclear-armed rivals can't afford to let their differences over Kashmir spin out of control.
The reality of their nuclear capability is summed up in a new analysis, based on CIA data, by Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He says India "probably has a small stockpile of nuclear weapons components and could assemble and deploy a few nuclear weapons within a few days to a week. The most likely platform are fighter-bomber aircraft."
As for Pakistan, Cordesman says its nuclear weapons also are probably stored in component form. "Pakistan could probably assemble the weapons fairly quickly and has aircraft and possibly ballistic missiles available for delivery," he adds.
The somewhat dry prose tends to conceal the enormity of the stakes in the dispute over the Muslim-dominated Kashmir region in India that produced wars between Pakistan and India in 1948 and 1965. The current dustup is the result of a terrorist attack two weeks ago on the Indian Parliament.
President Bush and Powell have looked on nervously in recent days as the two countries have issued threats, carried out troop movements and suspended land and air contacts, among other actions. This week, however, both sides seem inclined to climb down from the brink.
Pakistan's government arrested a key militant leader accused by India of masterminding the Dec. 13 attack on Parliament, and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Tuesday said his nation was open to dialogue with Pakistan if it shed its "anti-India mentality" and took "effective steps to stop cross-border terrorism."
The Bush administration has selfish motivations for encouraging a peaceful outcome. It is counting on the Pakistan military to help the United States finish off remnants of the al-Qaida/Taliban terrorist nexus that operates in Afghanistan along Pakistan's border to the west.
The U.S. belief is that if tensions worsen, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf will have no choice but to redeploy his forces in the west to the country's eastern border with India, setting back the U.S. anti-terrorism effort.
Musharraf is aware that his constituents are far more eager to deal with India than they are about the situation in Afghanistan.
Teresita Schaffer, a former ambassador and, like Cordesman, an associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says neither Musharraf nor Vajpayee are trigger-happy. But she does worry about miscalculations leading to a humanitarian catastrophe.
As examples, she says a short-term raid by one side could be interpreted as an invasion by the other. Or a false intelligence report could prompt one side to believe that it is in mortal danger, and strike the other with a nuclear blow.
"You don't even like to think about the consequences," Schaffer says.
Given the stakes, she is surprised that the Bush administration has not yet sent an envoy to the region to reinforce the telephone diplomacy being practiced by Powell and, to a lesser extent, Bush.
Sumit Ganguly, a South Asia expert at the University of Texas, agrees. He says a U.S. envoy should be dispatched to demand that the Pakistanis quickly root out all terror bases in the country.
The envoy also should call on the Indians to begin autonomy negotiations with Kashmiri leaders who oppose violence, Ganguly adds. The goal would be eventual autonomy for the region under the Indian flag.
"The best hope for any kind of redress lies with negotiations," he says.
Administration officials are hinting that an envoy may indeed be sent to the region later this month.
Meanwhile, Bush is sounding somewhat more optimistic this week about the situation, praising the measures Musharraf has taken against radical Islamic groups based in Pakistan.
"He's cracking down hard, and I appreciate his efforts," Bush said Monday.
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EDITOR'S NOTE -- George Gedda has covered foreign affairs for The Associated Press since 1968. |
