BW Online | January 14, 2002 | How to Help Kashmir

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JANUARY 14, 2002

INTERNATIONAL -- EDITORIALS

How to Help Kashmir

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INTERNATIONAL -- EDITORIALS

How to Help Kashmir

The Euro's Ripples

With the war in Afghanistan winding down, the most dangerous place in the world today is the 3,000-kilometer-long border separating India and Pakistan. It also is a place where there is a sudden opportunity to defuse tensions among two nuclear nations and to show by example that the "Age of the Bomb" is over.

Despite a swift massing of India's military in response to two vicious attacks from Pakistani-based terrorists, neither country wants war. Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf has earned America's gratitude for his staunch cooperation in the fight against the Taliban, and he is looking for significant economic aid and debt relief to stabilize his country. India is a thriving democracy with huge foreign investment needs and strong desire for a formal U.S. security relationship. A conflict of any kind will blow the hopes of both nations out the window.

There is an opportunity here for the Bush Administration to step in as an honest broker. The goal should be not just to help settle a long-running dispute over the Indian-controlled province of Kashmir, but also to get both nations to put a cap on their nuclear arsenals and begin a process aimed at dismantling them. Last year, the Bush team floated the idea of a formal U.S.-Indian security pact if India could settle the Kashmir problem. Then, in August, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin agreed to cut their nuclear stockpiles by two-thirds over the next decade, with the promise of significant economic savings for both. While the events were unrelated, a precedent may be developing that rewards the reduction of nuclear arsenals with economic benefits.

Kashmir, a once beautiful northern province, is today a dangerous, scarred land that should be allowed to decide its own future through free elections. If it chooses to become an independent state, India should live with that decision. The gains to India and Pakistan from a peaceful settlement will never be greater.

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