Jun 2, 2002 By Sally Buzbee Associated Press Writer 4 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – The United States finds itself with two immense and sometimes conflicting challenges in trying to defuse the India-Pakistan crisis: averting a war that could go nuclear, while still working to prevent terror attacks against Americans. That has created an unsettling question: Is it more important to pressure Pakistan to stop the Muslim extremists provoking India toward war, or pressure Pakistan to stop the Muslim extremists plotting against America?

Ideally, the United States could do both.

But Secretary of State Colin Powell made clear last week that the focus has shifted to “pressing (Pakistan’s leader) … very hard” to stop the extremists targeting India.

If the conflict with India leads Pakistan to move troops away from the Afghan border, “It takes away from our own world campaign against terrorism,” Powell acknowledged.

To Americans, it may seem inconceivable that a regional dispute on the other side of the world, dating from the end of British colonialism in 1947, could hold a key to their future safety.

Since Sept. 11, U.S. officials have considered Pakistan central to the success of the war on terrorism.

If Muslim extremism continues to flourish in Pakistan and is exported elsewhere, then terrorists such as Osama bin Laden will continue to find safe havens, financial support and many recruits.

If, however, a U.S.-friendly Pakistani leader successfully can put those extremists on the run, the chance of further attacks against Americans might lessen in the long term.

Before the attacks against the United States, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf largely tolerated extremists, for domestic political reasons.

His intelligence service supported the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan, which sheltered bin Laden’s al-Qaida network. Protests from Washington were not overly strenuous – some U.S. officials had seen the Taliban as a useful hedge against Russian plans to expand its economic influence in the region.

It also supported the Muslim extremists – some with links to al-Qaida – active in Kashmir, the mostly Muslim province in dispute between Pakistan and largely Hindu India.

After Sept. 11, and with substantial aid incentives, Musharraf cast his lot with America. U.S. officials praise his mass detentions of extremists and his army’s help catching al-Qaida fleeing Afghanistan.

India, though, notes that Musharraf later let many of the detainees go. It accuses him of still helping extremists reach Kashmir and attack India.

That puts the United States in the delicate position of trying to placate two countries – both strong U.S. allies – that are on full military alert against each other.

U.S. officials are urging restraint on India, even as they acknowledge its right to be frustrated with the continuing deadly attacks.

Musharraf must “live up to his word” and act against extremists targeting India, President Bush warned last week in a sharp departure from months of U.S. praise for Pakistan.

In many ways, India is the more natural ally to the United States than Pakistan. It is a democracy with increasingly close economic and defense ties with the United States.

“We are facing the same enemy,” India’s ambassador to the United States said.

But while the United States might benefit from warm ties with India, right now it desperately needs Pakistan. And the truth about Pakistan’s actions is complicated.

Musharraf controls the army and can probably control the intelligence services, said Teresita Schaffer, a former U.S. official in the region and now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

He probably could slow the flow of extremists into Kashmir to a trickle if he really exerted maximum effort, Schaffer said. But he would pay a price, she said, because Kashmir is not just an extremists’ issue. It is central to the identity of every Pakistani, including the generals Musharraf needs to stay in power.

Even more worrisome, militants already in the area, who hate Musharraf as much as they hate the United States and India, “can engage in activities on their own that could galvanize the conflict,” even if Musharraf tries to stop them, said Andrew Hess, a Pakistan expert at Tufts University’s Fletcher School.

In their hope to destroy Musharraf and India and create a Muslim vs. non-Muslim split worldwide, “they may be willing to go to radical lengths to encourage war, even nuclear war,” Hess said, even if that would destroy Pakistan, too.

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EDITOR’S NOTE – Sally Buzbee covers foreign affairs for The Associated Press.

in Washington.