Could Indian sabre-rattling in Kashmir have broken out into the fourth Indo-Pakistan war when mutual nuclear destruction was an important, albeit remote, option?

Was it a diversion to unite the country riven by the latest bout of Hindu-Muslim confrontation in the Indian heartland?

Could President Pervez Musharraf unleash his nuclear arsenal across the border into India even under extreme provocation?

Could a 55-year-old territorial dispute over Kashmir be turned on its head  the other cannot see how an ancient religious worldview could impinge so dramatically with modernity, especially when it prides itself in its politically-correct secularist agenda.

A resolution of the Kashmir issue would settle this once and for all. That is easier said than done. The stakes are too high for either to admit defeat. Those in power in either country are alive to forget the trauma of Partition, and each teach their children to beware of the demons across the border. Like Palestine, Kashmir is also a byproduct of colonial time-bomb arrangements when forced to give up territory.

Forces beside the two protagonists dictate how Kashmir  as did others. Washington insists this terror war can be won if democratic ideals are the norm all over the world.

But those who espouse this war on terror use it to contain secessionist pressures within its borders that has nothing to do with terror: Britain, with its cancerous sore of the IRA; Russia and Chechnya; India and Kashmir; the US and al-Qaeda; Israel and Palestine; China and Tibet; the Philippines and Mindanao, to name a few.

Washington believes the war can be fought militarily. But it does not consider the longer term hearts-and-minds approach which helped Malaysia defeat the communist insurgency. Guns and pitched battles give a temporary advantage. But the perceived enemy only gets stronger.

What India has done in Kashmir is strengthen the anti-Indian opposition for which Pakistan cannot take credit.