April 13, 2004

Iraq War Was Catalyst for Dialogue: PM
Agence France Press

The US-led war in Iraq prodded nuclear rivals India and Pakistan to launch a process to resolve their disputes over Kashmir, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said in an interview published yesterday. Vajpayee, however, rejected opposition claims the United States had put direct pressure on the two estranged neighbors to sort out their five decades of hostilities[IOW, they've been fighting since Pakistan split off from India and formed itself into a new nation--Jen].

The premier told the Times of India newspaper that a “circumstantial factor” was linked to his gesture in Kashmir on April 18 last year when he extended a “hand of friendship” to Pakistan to kick off a fresh peace initiative.

“The war in Iraq was a warning to all developing countries (that) we needed to resolve our disputes peacefully and speedily amongst ourselves,”[The unspoken part of this thought is that the alternative is the USA might do it for you with troops!--J.T.] the 79-year-old Vajpayee told the English-language daily.
[...]
India and Pakistan, who have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since independence in 1947, came dangerously close to a fourth war in 2002 following an attack on the Indian Parliament by gunmen New Delhi said were sponsored by Pakistan.

The 10-month standoff, during which a total of 700,000 troops massed on their borders, ended following a series of visits to the two countries by Western leaders, fearful that spiraling tensions could trigger a nuclear holocaust in South Asia.
[...]
“There is realization that fighting more wars is neither a solution nor an option,” Vajpayee said, insisting the initiative was the result of a bilateral consensus rather than international pressure.

“People feel that talks have begun after pressure from the United States,” he said of a dialogue started in February which aims to resolve a raft of regional disputes.

“At the time (April 18) there was no pressure. Of course, whenever they (US) met us, they said we should talk. This time there was no pressure. They did not even know that some talks had begun,” Vajpayee said.

Ah, the Bush Doctrine as exemplified by our initiative to disarm Saddam and effect régime change using military means continues to bear fruit and yet the Left (for obvious reasons) keeps calling the Iraq war a "mistake."
They'll either never get it or they get it only too well that their favorite form of government--transnational progressivism, which is merely a softer form of Communism--will never prevail over Democracy!
If we can eliminate Kashmir altogether as a contested troublespot for Al Queda-linked IslamoNazis to wage jihad, that will make for yet one less place on the planet we have to be concerned with in the WOT and we're working on the Israeli-Paleostian conflict.