The greatest of these supposed ‘breakthroughs’ came in the wake of the artificial hysteria that waswhipped up over an ostensibly imminent war – and possible nuclear holocaust – in South Asia in the latterpart of May 2001, after the Kaluchak massacre tempted the Indian leadership to engage in an experiment inbrinkmanship. The fact is, at no moment during that entire counterfeit crisis, was there even the remotestpossibility of war, and the ease with which the tensions were abruptly dissipated by the Indian PrimeMinister’s sudden pronouncements about ‘clear skies’ bore out the absurdity of Western projections. Thisdid not, however, end war speculation, and ‘experts’ continued to argue that the next time there was amajor terrorist strike in India, the country’s leadership ‘would not be able to resist public pressure’for military retaliation against Pakistan – and Pakistan’s dictator, President Pervez Musharraf, soughtinternational guarantees against Indian ‘overreaction’ in case of a major terrorist attack in India bygroups that he ‘cannot control’. But another massacre of comparable magnitude did occur – at Kasimpuraon July 13 – and there was not even a suggestion of a military response across the Line of Control (LoC).