Word: musharraf
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...between India and Pakistan is averted, the countries will still have plenty of challenges between them--and on their own. Musharraf will have to explain to his people his crackdown on terrorism, which he used to call by a more glorified name. Lots of those people lived for the jihad that is now under such attack. "When I was a child, my mother wanted me to get settled in London," says Abu Haroon, 28, returned to Pakistan after two years fighting in Kashmir. "But I opted for jihad after one of my friends died in India. I abandoned my education...
When the leaders of two snarling nations are personally committed to better ties, why is that so hard to accomplish? On the surface, a long list of differences separate Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. One is devoted to Hindu nationalism, the other to a strong Muslim nation. One governs the world's most populous democracy, the other rules by diktat. India's leader is 20 years older and the frail veteran of 47 years in politics; Pakistan's is a fit career soldier whose political life began just two years ago in a military...
...Vajpayee and Musharraf ought to be able to do business together. Both are the moderate face of their hard-line constituencies and liberals in their private lives. Together, they control two of the world's seven declared nuclear arsenals. And each came to power proclaiming the same grand ambition: to bring peace to a subcontinent torn by futile hostility since it was partitioned into a mainly Hindu country and a mainly Muslim...
They have tried before. Last July, at a summit in the northern Indian city of Agra, the two leaders looked ready to achieve a historic meeting of minds. The determined general and the affable poet-politician practically embraced as they showered each other with compliments. Vajpayee called Musharraf a "distinguished son of Delhi" (where he was born), and the Pakistani leader dubbed his counterpart India's "graceful elder." They parleyed in private for hours while aides anxiously waited outside the door. But the bonhomie ran aground on Kashmir when they could not agree even on whether to call...
...general was, of course, the same man who had spoiled Vajpayee's previous peace initiative toward Pakistan. In early 1999, while Vajpayee and democratically elected President Nawaz Sharif were initialing a new chapter in bilateral relations in Lahore, Musharraf, then chief of the Pakistani armed forces, was orchestrating a daring incursion into Kashmir, into the Indian-held Kargil Heights. That provoked six weeks of bloody combat, cutting dead Vajpayee's cherished Lahore process...