It is an honor to be invited to share my views on the prospects for rapprochementbetween India and Pakistan, and the steps that America might take to strengthen thefledgling peace process now underway. The United States can and should do more—ithas mostly been a bystander—but in the final analysis it will be up to the Indians andPakistanis to determine whether their debilitating rivalry will continue for another fiftyyears. This rivalry is costly to them, but it also places important American interests atrisk.
Senator Lugar, you have asked me to address the internal dynamics in eachcountry that may be driving the current thaw, and to suggest how U.S. policy mightfurther encourage positive trends.
I am pleased to do so, but by way of background the following should be kept inmind.
The Historical Framework
On the face of it, the present thaw will not last. India-Pakistan relations havemoved from crisis to détente and back again for many decades.The most recent cycle began in 1987 with provocative Indian military exercisesdesigned, in part, to pre-emptively attack Pakistan’s fledgling nuclear program. Anothercrisis occurred in 1990, and a mini-war was fought in 1999 in the Kargil region ofKashmir. Two years ago, India again threatened a larger war, this time in response toterrorist attacks in Kashmir and on the Indian Parliament.
These crises have alternated with periods of normalization and even cordiality,marked by several summit meetings. After 1987 President Zia ul-Haq flew to India in agesture of reconciliation; after 1990 Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi crafted someconfidence-building measures (a few of which were implemented); and both before andafter the 1999 Kargil war India’s Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee held summitmeetings with Pakistani leaders (Nawaz Sharif in Lahore, Musharraf in Agra). Finally,Vajpayee and Musharraf met in Islamabad last month in connection with a South AsianAssociation for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit.
Lessons Learned