Posted on: Thursday, December 27, 2001

Editorial
Peace in South Asia must be U.S. priority

The burning issue in American foreign policy for the moment is not where next to extend the war on terrorism, but to quiet the drums of war beating on the border of India and Pakistan.

It's bad enough that the two countries have already fought three wars since their partition in 1947. The fact that must occupy our attention now is that both have nuclear weapons.

A nuclear exchange between them obviously would be a disaster on a global scale. The United States must do much more than it has to rein in this possibility.

The good news is that India's intentions, if war comes, appear to be the sort of conventional war that requires months of preparation. Its military has expressed a preference not to fight in winter.

The bad news is that India and Pakistan have not yet had time to build a culture embracing the concept of mutually assured destruction. The United States and the Soviet Union had decades, motivated by sheer terror, which succeeded in keeping the competition between them cold.

The key to backing India and Pakistan away from war appears to be the highly irregular circumstance in the time-honored business of exchanging ramped-up accusations and ultimatums. In this case, the initial offense seems clearly to have been Pakistan's.

India has accused Pakistan of aiding and abetting two Islamic militant groups that launched a suicide attack on India's Parliament on Dec. 13, and both Pakistan and the United States have taken measures against these groups that lend tacit acknowledgement of India's charges. And Pakistan's military leader, President Pervez Musharraf has criticized Muslim extremists for tarnishing Islam's image for promoting hatred.

While India says these measures aren't enough, they clearly provide a starting point for dismantling the steps so far taken toward war. The United States makes a logical third party here, because its rapid thrust into the region with its war in Afghanistan has done much to destabilize India-Pakistan relations. Recall that until recently the Taliban was a Pakistani proxy, while India supported the Northern Alliance, which led the effort against the Taliban.

Moreover, the Bush administration has sent confusing signals to the region in enlisting Pakistan as an ally in the war on terrorism, while recruiting India as a strategic counterweight to China. The least Washington can do is help them sort out this confusion in a nonviolent manner.