Powell oils frontline coalition to bolster unity

With the arrival of US Secretary of State Colin Powell for a four-day diplomatic tour, the United States is making its strongest effort yet to shore up support among frontline states in the current US-led war on terrorism.

Meeting with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf today and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee tomorrow, Mr. Powell will convey American gratitude for Pakistani and Indian support thus far, and will attempt to show them what a future Afghan government might look like as well as lay out how the US plans to avert further civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

But the toughest task may be keeping America's two key allies, Pakistan and India, from fighting each other over the troubled state they both claim, Jammu and Kashmir.

There are reasons for concern. India and Pakistan, which both have demonstrated nuclear-weapons capability, have fought two wars directly over the fate of Kashmir, including a 1999 incursion by then Pakistan Army chief Musharraf in the Kashmiri mountain pass of Kargil. Adding fuel to the fire is a 12-year-long insurgency by Kashmiri militants, many of them based in Pakistan and funded by Islamic hard-line parties, which has claimed more than 36,000 lives.

US officials privately say Mr. Powell will urge both India and Pakistan to minimize tensions and avert a "shooting war" over Kashmir, at least until the present war against Osama bin Laden and his Taliban hosts is concluded.

With ongoing attacks between Kashmiri militant groups and Indian security forces, including a devastating suicide bomb attack last month on Kashmir's state assembly that killed 40 people, it is clear Powell faces a delicate balancing act in asking both India and Pakistan to set aside national compulsions and build support for the global drive against terrorist networks.

"Powell will advise India and Pakistan to lower tensions and bilateral feuding that could undermine the coalition to deal with Osama bin Laden," says Rifaat Hussain, chairman of the Defense and Strategic Studies department at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. "At a minimum, he would ask both sides to resume dialogue."

Past efforts at dialogue over Kashmir, most recently at a top-level summit last July in the Indian city of Agra, have largely proved fruitless.

In any event, Powell's visit shows how much America's South Asia policy has changed since Sept. 11. Before the World Trade Center attacks, the Bush administration appeared ready to continue the policy of the Clinton administration in tilting heavily toward India. In August, America lifted all sanctions against India imposed after its 1999 nuclear-weapons tests.

By contrast, America lifted only the nuclear sanctions against Pakistan, but maintained a raft of other sanctions over Pakistan's military coup, its inability to pay off mounting debt, and its reputed support for terrorist groups.

Today, the US appears ready to lift most, if not all, further sanctions against Pakistan. In addition, Bush administration officials have indicated US willingness to provide debt relief for Pakistan's $38 billion in outstanding international loans.

More than 50 percent of all Pakistan's government spending goes to interest payments on that debt, leaving little for social spending - such as drinking water, infrastructure, and building public schools to provide rural villagers with an alternative to the Koranic schools, or madrassahs, that are fertile recruiting grounds for Islamic extremist groups.

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