ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — As India and Pakistan continued shelling each other Sunday in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, and world leaders pleaded with the two nuclear powers to halt their military buildup, both nations found themselves in unfamiliar positions on the world stage.
Pakistan, whose nuclear arsenal, military dictatorship and history of Islamic extremism have long worried many nations, is suddenly being viewed favorably by much of the international community for its nascent efforts to quash home-grown terrorism.
India--also a sometimes unstable nuclear power but in addition the world's largest democracy and, after the Cold War ended, a close friend of the West--is increasingly being seen as the provocateur in a potentially disastrous game of brinkmanship.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee each held meetings Sunday to shore up support from various political parties in case war breaks out. A day earlier, President Bush called both men to urge calm for the first time since tensions began rising in mid-December.
India's government, and its leading editorial writers, insist the country's continuing military buildup is a legitimate response to an act of war: the Dec. 13 suicide attack on its Parliament, which Indian authorities blame on two Kashmiri separatist groups that are based in Pakistan and, India's government claims, secretly supported by Islamabad.
Following a standard of culpability set by Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S., most Indians hold Pakistan responsible for the Dec. 13 assault.
Indian investigators say five suicide attackers were trying to kill Vajpayee and key members of his Cabinet. A gun battle with police and troops left 14 people dead, including the attackers.
Since then, however, each threatening move has appeared to come from India. At the same time, Musharraf has taken what many consider unexpectedly tough and politically precarious steps in an effort to rein in anti-India terrorism.
"The Pakistan government has done everything it can to demonstrate that it does not want war, that it wants a solution to this . . . without coming to blows," a U.S. official in Pakistan said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The hope now is that India will understand Pakistan is doing the best it can do."
