WASHINGTON — The last time a high-level American official went to India and Pakistan — which was just last month — it was to head off a threatening conflagration between the two nuclear rivals.
Now, as Secretary of State Colin Powell leaves for talks in India Saturday and in Pakistan on Monday, the objective is less flashy. But it's potentially more fruitful in terms of long-term stability in the volatile region.
Mr. Powell's task is to get each side thinking less about how best to afflict the other — and less about the religious extremists on each side — and more about measures to build trust. "There's a recognition that the ad hoc, fire-brigade approach to the conflict can't hold," says a Pakistani diplomat in Washington.
But with tensions still high after last month's pullback from the brink, just how far Powell will be able to venture beyond the mutual distrusts of the crisis remains a question mark. In addition, both countries appear to be manipulating the US focus on terrorism to its advantage.
"I don't know how likely it is Powell can reach any breakthroughs now. But it is extremely important he try to take this beyond crisis management," says Karl Inderfurth, former assistant secretary of State for South Asia in the Clinton administration. Noting that tensions are rising again with renewed violence in India-controlled Kashmir, Inderfurth adds, "We cannot disregard the ever-present danger that this conflict could slip into a war" of global implications.
Powell has said publicly he wants his trip to demonstrate that the US sees its relations with India and Pakistan in more than just security terms. Saying the US is "working hard" to resolve the current hostilities, he told a Washington radio station last week, "I also want to talk about the broader US agenda ... we have more important issues to work on with them than just the current crisis."
But Powell, who follows Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's mission to the region in June, will find two countries warily eyeing the other's relationship with the global superpower. "Each side distrusts the US's relationship with the other," says Radha Kumar, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
India says Pakistan has repeatedly failed to follow through on commitments to halt cross-border violence by Islamic extremists in India's Muslim-majority Kashmir state. India also believes that the US is too ready to play down those failures as long as Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf cooperates with the US in the war on terrorism.
"India sees the US tied to Pakistan now because of the fight with terrorism, and fears the US is turning a blind eye to its failings," says Kumar.
For their part, the Pakistanis would like the US to press the Indian government to accept a dialogue on Kashmir, the scene of an Islamic insurgency for more than a decade. The Musharraf government fears the US is slipping toward accepting the Indians' characterization of their